This article is taken from the October 2024 issue of The Critic. To get the full magazine why not subscribe? Right now we’re offering five issues for just £10.

It was midway through the afternoon on the first day of the fourth Test in Nagpur in 2012, and England were in a pickle. Leading the series 2-1, Alastair Cook’s side needed a draw in the last match to secure a first win in India for 28 years. Inevitably, the home team’s spinners had them in knots.

Four good batsmen had been dismissed and Kevin Pietersen, who had passed 50 on what he called “the toughest pitch I ever played on”, would not last much longer. Out jogged England’s 21-year-old debutant. If he felt nerves, he did not show them. Flashing a huge grin, one which fans would see often over the next dozen years, Joe Root greeted Pietersen, a man of such confidence and ego that his nickname amongst Australians was “Figjam” (“Fuck, I’m good, just ask me”), as if he were the senior partner. “All right, lad,” Root said. “What’s going on out here?”

With a mission purely to survive, Root lived up to his name. He stayed at his post for five hours, facing 229 balls for 73 runs to take England to a position from which they could secure the draw. It remains the slowest of the 98 Test innings in which Root has passed 50. He realised his responsibility and delivered. As one report said: “He looked like the Milkybar Kid but played like Clint Eastwood.”

A lot of runs have flowed from his bat since that mature debut. At some point this winter, possibly in his next innings against Pakistan in Multan, he will score the 71 runs he needs to overtake Cook and become England’s record run-scorer in Tests. At the end of August he made 143 and 103 at Lord’s to pass Cook’s 34 centuries. The aggregates of Rahul Dravid, Jacques Kallis and Ricky Ponting could be in the mirror by next winter, then just Sachin Tendulkar would remain. And Root is only 33.

I first heard about Root in the Abu Dhabi press box in early 2012, where England had blown a Test against Pakistan. Set 145, they were bowled out for 72. The mood was glum. Enter Geoffrey Boycott to cheer us up. “Don’ tha’ worry,” the former England opener declared. “There’s this nipper called Roo’ at Yorkshire. He’s the future.”

And by future, he meant in a nostalgic don’t-make-’em-like-that-any-more sort of way. How Boycs built him up, this Roo’ would be the next Hutton or Sutcliffe, perhaps even as great as his own fabled mother, who famously could see off the best bowlers with a stick of rhubarb.

At that stage, Root had played one season of county cricket. He made 1,000 runs, batting in the top three, but only one century. The next summer he made three more, averaging 42. England decided he was ready to take on tour. It had been his destiny, almost since birth. He first held a cricket bat at two days old, and as a child he clutched one like a comfort blanket. It was said that he could not pass a mirror without practising shadow strokes. He scored runs in his sleep.

Boycott, the most obdurate batsman, would have enjoyed Root’s first Test innings. A strike-rate of 32 runs per 100 balls is “proper creekit”. Yet he was no one-pace pony; he could adapt to the occasion. In the one-day internationals that winter, Root made 57 in 45 balls and 79 in 56, both undefeated. When he compiled his first Test century the next summer it came from 156 balls, which is fairly pedestrian, but then he made 28 off 22 balls in the second innings as England set up a declaration.

Surprisingly, Root was the first Yorkshire player to make his maiden Test century at Headingley. The next summer he was the first to make a one-day international century there. He is a proud son of the Broad Acres, forged in Sheffield. And yet there is little of the stereotypical dour Yorkshireman about him. That glowing smile first seen in Nagpur has seldom failed, even when he was under pressure as England captain. He played cricket for love, not obligation.

She can be a fickle mistress, of course, and like every batsman he has had fallow patches. Even Don Bradman once went 11 Test innings without a century, a dry spell that ended with him making 304 and 244 in successive knocks. There were five successive series between 2017 and 2019 when Root failed to average 40, and his career average fell from 54 to 47.

That ended with him making 226 against New Zealand. Then came a spell of making starts but not big scores, with 13 consecutive Test innings in which he made between 14 and 68. That was broken with 228, 186 and 218 in the space of five innings.

Critics would observe that he has still not scored a century in Australia, where England tour next winter. Rectifying that should be his late-career goal. Since turning 30 less than four years ago, Root has scored more than 4,500 Test runs — an extraordinary 2,015 more than the next most productive batsman in that time — and hit 17 centuries.

Happily back in the ranks under the captaincy of Ben Stokes, whom he has known for 20 years and has now presumably forgiven for putting Nando’s peri-peri sauce in his Coke at the Bunbury festival when they were 15, Root has been reborn. Long may he continue to smile.