‘Australia will have to admit he’s a great’ – Root hits elusive century

“Even Australia will have to admit he’s a great now,” said his former team-mate Sir Alastair Cook.

Joe Root has, finally, done it.

In his 30th innings down under – 4,395 days after his first and after all of the pre-series talk – the England batter has his first Test century in Australia.

The 34-year-old came in with his side reeling at 5-2 in the third over, was dropped on two and saw wickets tumble from the other end but dug in to reach the 40th century of his illustrious Test career late in the evening session.

He got to the landmark with a flick to fine leg, removed his helmet and saluted the crowd with a shrug and a typically measured celebration.

“It is a brilliant innings and just what England needed,” Cook said on TNT Sports.

“He’s been superb under pressure as always. He is England’s best batsman ever. He just gets better and better.”

Before this innings, Root had made nine fifties and scored 900 runs in Australia, but his average of 33.33 was the lowest of any country in which he had batted more than twice.

It was why the West Australian newspaper labelled him “Average Joe”.

The century moves Root within one of Australia great Ricky Ponting, who sits third on the list of most hundreds in Test history.

More significantly, however, it ends any conversation about whether or not Root, already the second-highest run-scorer in Tests, can be considered an all-time great without a Test century in Australia – an opinion put forward by former Australia coach and batter Darren Lehmann.

“He’d [Joe Root] have arrived thinking I haven’t got a hundred here and he would have known for England to get back into the series he needs runs,” former England captain Michael Vaughan told BBC Sport’s Daily Ashes Debrief.

“To deliver here under that amount of pressure was remarkable.”

By the end of day one, Root was hitting out alongside Jofra Archer in a flying unbroken partnership of 61 which took England to 325-9 and gave them the edge.

Before that it was gritty – he played fewer attacking shots (34% compared to 40%) than all of his team-mates – and not without its moments of tension.

On 88, one short of his previous best in Australia, Root berated himself for pushing and missing outside off stump to bowler Cameron Green.

There were lbw reviews on 62 and 73 – Scott Boland the bowler on both occasions – but the first would have missed the stumps and the second hit Root’s front pad outside off stump.

Talk about Root’s Australian record ramped up in the summer when former Australia batter David Warner referenced his “surfboard” of a front pad.

In truth, edging to the wicketkeeper and slips has been his real weakness with another dismissal in that manner in the first-Test defeat – he scored eight and nought in Perth – making it nine in his past 12 innings down under.

Root could have fallen in that fashion with only two to his name. He was squared up by Mitchell Starc, as he was in the first innings in Perth, and nicked towards the cordon.

The ball would not not have carried Marnus Labuschagne at first slip but Steve Smith, diving across from second, got a hand to the ball only for it to fall from his grasp.

From there Root batted smartly.

Between the 41st and 50th over, when the floodlights started to take hold, Root scored just seven runs off 27 balls – his lowest strike-rate across a 10-over interval.

Guiding the ball behind point is one of his biggest strengths at home but that shot has been blamed for his struggles in Australia, where the ball bounces higher and edges are found.

In Brisbane, Root scored just 10% of his first 50 runs behind square on the off-side – a drop of around 20% on his career average – and instead targeted the ‘V’ down the ground.

Only later did that familiar stroke return.

“After Perth there were a few doubts,” Vaughan said.

“There’ll have been doubts in Joe’s mind. The way he managed the game, there were periods he scored quickly and then periods where Australia started to bowl well and the ball started to zip.”

Root also made a conscious effort to get down the pitch to negate any movement with the pink ball.

His average interception point was 1.87m from the stumps – the highest in all but one of his innings in Australia.

Few will be happier that Root reached three figures than former Australia opener Matthew Hayden, who promised to walk around the Melbourne Cricket Ground naked if he did not score a hundred in the series.

“Congratulations on a hundred here in Australia mate,” Hayden said.

“Took you a while and there was no one that had more skin in the game than me, literally.

“I was backing you for a hundred in a good way.

“Congratulations, 10 fifties and finally a hundred. You little ripper mate, have a beauty and enjoy it.”

Legendary Australia bowler Glenn McGrath said this innings only reaffirmed the fact Root will be remembered as a “great” of the sport when he retires.

“He was brilliant,” McGrath said.

“To get that monkey off his back shows the class he is.”

Root will remain steadfast that his focus is on the team. He said before this series that was more important than personal milestones.

But this landmark leaves only one more individual landmark for him to reach – the biggest of all.

He now sits 2,235 runs behind India great Sachin Tendulkar in the all time Test run-scorers list. At his current rate of scoring he will move to the top of the pile sometime in 2027.

“I have said for a long time he is England’s greatest player across formats,” Vaughan said.

“If that back stays right he will surpass Sachin Tendulkar’s record in two-and-a-half years’ time.”