Joe Root — England’s Greatest (redux)
“Rasputin and Raspberry Jam” Vol.1
“Joe Root — England’s Greatest” acts as the third chapter within Act 1 of 3 inside my latest self-published book “Rasputin and Raspberry Jam”, a day-by-day and match-by-match breakdown of England’s 2024 overseas tours to Pakistan and New Zealand and as an added extra in Act 3, the 5 Test Match series between Australia and India too.
Released in paperback and hardback on 7th January 2025 and free to read if you have an Amazon Kindle “Unlimited” membership, but please consider supporting an indie author by purchasing the physical, tangible book (reasonably priced on both formats and it looks FAR better in paper published form than the Kindle version!) if you are financially able.
Thanks.
Here follows a larger version of the front cover (rather than the cropped image to fit the article headline here) as well as a link to the book in paperback, a link to my original article (9th October 2024) and the original article in full:
"Rasputin and Raspberry Jam" - link to Amazon
“With that immaculate on-drive, Joe Root plants his flag at the summit. 12 years after making his debut in Nagpur, he now has more runs in Test cricket than any other England player. A remarkable achievement from a remarkable player”
ex England captain Michael Atherton
Playing and watching cricket remain my earliest childhood memories, from playing alone and perfecting my bowling action with just a tennis ball and a set of stumps chalked onto a brick wall for company, to losing a city wide Cup Final after being bowled out for 12 (yes, 12 all out!) through to captaining my works team, vice captain of the Saturday team, trials for my county of Hampshire at 16 years of age and even playing for a team of semi-professional standard “Zombies” (who were anything but this strangely abstract name) and being honoured to play with them in the Sunday sunshine in the most picturesque spots and cricket grounds you’d never know they were there unless, like me, you did, for season after glorious season, blazing sun filled Sunday afternoons before a sumptuous tea, good natured banter with both teammates and the opposition alike, and the watching of a sun setting on another beautiful day before a 7 day summer wait for the cricketing carousel to roll around once again.
Players have come and gone, heroes too, and from all corners of the cricket world. Ian Botham and “Bustling” Bob Willis were soon joined by the madness of Aussie Merv Hughes and particularly so the much missed Malcolm Marshall whose bowling action was the very epitome of “poetry in motion”. The names of cricketing greats can easily roll off the tongue as the years have passed by on the river of life: Steve Waugh, Sachin Tendulkar, Brian Lara, Ricky Ponting, Glenn McGrath, Shane Warne, Graham Gooch, Alistair Cook, Kevin Pietersen, Shaun Pollock, Allan Donald, Courtenay Walsh, Joel Garner, Curtley Ambrose, Gordon Greenidge, Stuart Broad, James Anderson.
We could be here for some time!
Joe Root joined the anything but exhaustive list above many years ago but cemented his place not for his often otherworldly gift with a cricket bat in hand or his beautiful “Golden Arm” and unique ability to snag a vital wicket for his team with the ball when the chips were down and the going tougher than tough. He’d been England captain for a little over four years when he and his team faced their toughest assignment yet and the 2021/2022 Ashes series in Australia. Humiliating defeat followed embarrassed thrashing match by match and Joe Root was, at least in a sporting sense, broken, the cheeky Yorkshire smile almost gone. As I reasoned within the opening lengthy chapter of my first book on cricket “Ashes to Ashes”, Root simply had to remain as captain for the good of English cricket if not for the failing team all around him, and so with a 4–0 Australian hammering weighing heavily on his shoulders he captained the team once more on the tour to the West Indies that followed, his team embarrassingly failed again, this time a tame 1–0 defeat, and whilst I still championed the skipper for fear of losing his legendary skills if nothing else, the good ship England rightly appointed a successor, and the Yorkshireman has flourished ever since.
Luckily for all concerned, I’m not chairman of England cricket!
Records have tumbled ever since and, after matching and surpassing Alistair Cook’s milestone of centuries for England in the summer series with Sri Lanka, today he passed him as England’s all time record run scorer in Test Match cricket. Root added yet another Test Match 50 (his 65th) as well as his 35th century to end a dominating day for England on 176 not out, over 100 runs more now than Alistair Cook as England’s highest ever run scorer at Test Match level and 5th on the all-time list in the entire history of this storied game. Less than a thousand runs now separate Joe Root from climbing over Rahul Dravid, Jacques Kallis and Ricky Ponting into second all-time position and whilst Sachin Tendulkar’s record of 15,921 Test Match runs is still many cricket seasons away, only injury can surely prevent Root from being the greatest run scorer Test Match cricket has ever seen.
Today Root was faultless and only ever in trouble late in the day with a beautiful delivery from Naseem Shah that struck his pads leading to a close call for LBW that went unrewarded both on field and via the TV umpire. Aside from this he glided from his overnight not out total of 35 to a half century of 50 easily before he reverse swept his 167th delivery received for a single and the milestone of a 35th all-time Test Match century was his. 68 balls later he was 150 not out and as the sun set and the artificial floodlights of the Multan International Cricket Stadium took over, he finally left the field of play after batting all day on 176 not out, and all in the company of his heir apparent and fellow Yorkshireman, Harry Brook.
It seemed fitting. Two Yorkshiremen leaving the field together. The not quite old with the still very new. The modern future of the game with the not so ancient soon to be master of the grand old game of cricket, and a game he LOVES.
All hail Joe Root — England’s greatest ever batsman.
So where does this leave the Test Match in Multan as a whole? During the first 10 of Joe Root’s 12 years as an England player, captain and batsman supreme, this Test Match would be heading for a 5 day stalemate and eventual draw. But under the captaincy of Ben Stokes (although absent here through injury) and coach Brendon McCullum, this England team doesn’t play for draws and on this docile, easy wicket, I can only foresee their charges chasing further quick runs tomorrow (they scored almost 400 total runs today at nearly 5 runs an over) thus setting up a huge 1st innings mountain for Pakistan to climb to reach parity and, hopefully for all concerned, an exciting run chase of sorts on the final day.
It’s easy to overlook Ben Duckett’s less than a run-a-ball 84 today and one hopes his badly injured thumb is nothing worse than this for the rest of the tour. Similarly, please don’t brush over Harry Brook’s 6th Test Match century (from just 118 balls received) or the “life” he was granted when on 75 not out and the ball ricocheting from his bat to his upper chest to the back of his gloves before gently rolling back along the wicket and into his stumps. Thankfully for the Yorkshireman the bails were not dislodged and he returns in the morning with his county mate Joe Root on 141 not out.
Both will surely have double centuries in their respective sights.
But today belongs to the 33 year old from Dore in Sheffield, and I couldn’t be more pleased for him.
Thanks for reading. I hope this message in a bottle in The Matrix finds you well, prospering, and the right way up in an upside down world.