The English No.4 is 2,378 runs behind Sachin Tendulkar for the most runs in Test cricket.
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Waking up to such headlines would be enough to indicate that there is an Ashes series around the corner. The fight for the urn is one of the most celebrated rivalries in the world of sport. We are once again approaching a banger of a five-Test series. Alike all these years, Joe Root is right at the centre of it all.
What separates us from him is the fact that he will have to walk out to the middle, while all of us would be ready with our popcorn on the comfortable couches back home. Being one of the most established batters for the Three Lions, a lot will depend on Joe Root’s able shoulders throughout the course of the five-match Test series. Yet, one of the things that would be playing on his mind would be the ‘zero’ against his name under the centuries column Down Under.
Irrespective of whether one has 13,543 Test runs or is about to make a debut for his side, it all starts from zero. Irrespective of whether one has gotten a hundred in the last innings or a fifty, the next time one walks out to bat, it is work all over again. Maybe that is why we call it Test cricket. It is no secret that Joe Root might be well on his way towards surpassing the legendary Sachin Tendulkar for the most runs in Test cricket. However, the Englishman would have to come across a lot of hurdles, the first of which would be a five-match Test series starting on November 21.
That being said, the first Test could be just what Joe Root would have prayed for. Not because of the venue, not because of the pitch, but because two of Australia’s prime speedsters would not be taking the field. The hosts would be without skipper Pat Cummins and Josh Hazlewood for the first Test in Perth. Not that Scott Boland and Mitchell Starc are any less troublesome, but it would surely give Root a small sigh of relief to ease into the series.
It is fascinating how a huge chunk of an entire narrative for such a big series has Joe Root written all over it. In addition to the fans, many experts on the world stage have drafted their opinions on whether the English No.4 would get to the three-figure mark on Australian soil. While some experts have kept it down to their opinions, a few have put things on the line. The English fans would surely be seated for a Root masterclass early in the series.
And why wouldn’t they? The 34-year-old batter from England is currently the second-highest run-scorer in Test cricket, and the first among active players. In numerical terms, Root has gathered 15,543 runs in the longest format of the game and stands 2,378 runs behind Sachin Tendulkar. But we shouldn’t discount the fact that Root has got to where he is without a single century on Australian soil.
To give our readers a bit of insight, Root has not been in bad form on Australian soil. In the 27 innings that he has played in Australia, he has scored fifty or more runs nine times, which translates to almost 34% of his innings. Sure, centuries are good. But they aren’t everything, and it doesn’t mean that Root won’t get one Down Under.
In the 27 Test innings which Joe Root has played on Australian soil to date, there has been a clear pattern to his dismissals. The English No.4 has been dismissed caught behind the wicket (wicketkeeper or slips) 17 times out of 27, which is 62.96% of the time. This gives us a clear indication that the Englishman has had to overcome some issues concerning the understanding of his off-stump line.
That being said, it can be safely assumed that Root has become a different version of the batter than he was when he last toured Australia. More than 13,000 runs in Test cricket do not come to a batter who doesn’t know his game inside out, and Root has shown what he is capable of even in Australia. However, the Australians will have every piece of this data by heart and will come hard at Root, who must be prepared with a solution up his sleeve.
Looking at the above image, it is quite clear why Joe Root would be breathing a sigh of relief before the first Test. Australian skipper Pat Cummins has got the better of Root on five occasions in the past, and has troubled him with the incoming as well as outgoing deliveries. To add to that, Hazlewood has also been a trouble-maker for the England No.4.
Two out of the three dismissals of Nathan Lyon have been Root’s lapse of concentration and were not deliveries that would usually garner wickets. However, the English mainstay will have to be well aware of his chances against the Australian finger-spinner.
Rue out one of Cummins, Hazlewood or Starc, and in comes Scott Boland! The 36-year-old Australian speedster is known for his probing lines, which give very little away to the batters. Boland is seldom the one to open the bowling, but he might do so in the first Test in the absence of both Cummins and Hazlewood. Boland has got the better of Root on four occasions and would be aiming for more with some grass on the wicket at the Optus Stadium in Perth.
Troubling a batter who is sitting on more than 10,000 Test runs is no mean feat. But that same batter cannot be moved unless there is a pattern to it. Over the years, there has been a pattern in Joe Root’s dismissals in Australia, especially against pacers. The right-handed batter did not have the best of ideas regarding his off-stump, which gave the bowlers a better chance against him.
Former Australian batter commented on Root’s possibilities of doing well Down Under. He clearly expressed that the 34-year-old would have nightmares batting against the likes of Josh Hazlewood, who has taken Root for a ride in recent times. Joe Root was getting trapped by deliveries that were coming in to him, but ended up nicking the ones slightly, leaving him as well.
This is one of Root’s dismissals in the Ashes 2013 series. It is clearly visible that he is not completely committed to playing on the front foot and is trapped in the middle. Most of Root’s dismissals in his early days have been plotted in the same manner by trapping him in a zone where he is neither ahead nor completely back.
To give more clarity, Joe Root does not have a lot of gap between his feet in his stance. While this helps him to stand tall, it also has certain disadvantages. It leaves a batter indecisive. And when there is express pace on the ball being launched towards one, quick decisions become paramount. It is this factor which Joe Root has worked on in his initial years.
But over the last few years, there have been bowlers who have trapped Root right in front of the wicket. This has made the second-highest run-scorer in Tests succumb to deliveries that nip back in to him after pitching on a lot of occasions. A clear example can be seen in the image below.
This instance is from one of the recent Ashes series, when Pat Cummins got the better of Joe Root. It is clearly visible that Root has already committed with his front foot across, while the ball is yet to be pitched. Once the front foot is planted, it is difficult for the batter to play the ball coming back in because the head falls over. In the image, it can be seen that Root’s head has already started to fall over. Classic LBW trap!
One factor which hugely contributed to the fall of Joe Root in this fashion could have been his trigger movement. Up until the early 2020s, Root had a trigger movement which would take him back in the same line that he was standing on. For instance, a batter standing on a leg stump would go behind on the same line.
However, as years have passed, Joe Root has made a conscious change to his trigger movement. The English No.4 now slightly comes across in his trigger, which is visible in all of his innings against India in the recent Anderson-Tendulkar Trophy. Though he has found a way to negate the incoming delivery, Root will have to be aware of his head not falling over in case he wants to go across.
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Well, centuries are a huge part of batting. But they reveal very little about the technique or the mindset of a player. Joe Root has not got a hundred on Australian soil yet, but his numbers Down Under speak volumes of his consistency. This might be one of the instances where numbers are not always everything in sport. There’s a lot more context to sport than just numbers.
Whether Joe Root will score a century or not is for time to reveal to us. But irrespective of that, the spectators are in for a mouth-watering series ahead of them, over the course of a month and a half.
To add a bit more match to it, Joe Root is currently 2,378 Test runs behind Sachin Tendulkar, which is a massive margin in terms of the longest format. England plays around 12-15 Tests in a calendar year on average. Considering his fitness, Root can play on for another three years for sure, which features him in 36 Tests to come over the next three years.
In those 65-odd innings, Joe Root needs to score 2,378 runs to bridge that massive gap. The average for each innings comes down to approximately 37. The point of these calculations is to state that Root can go past Tendulkar without scoring a century from here. His scoring a century on Australian soil and going past Tendulkar for the most runs in Test history will remain different ball games.
For someone who was handed the bat in hand right after he was born, this doesn’t seem to be much of a hurdle. At the end of the day, it cannot always be about the ton(s). It has got to be the runs that are far more valuable than the tons!
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