🔗 Share this article

Ultimately, even the celebration was ideal, under lights under that unusual deep-blue southern sky, within the tumult of the contest – hyper Baz energy, England’s lower order cutting loose with reckless abandon at the other end.

Indeed. All of that. In the middle, Joe Root guided the ball away past fine leg to notch his first Test hundred in Australia.

However, for those who understand, the significance is clear. Picture trying to explain why this was not just heartwarming, uplifting and cleansing, but profoundly significant.

An Achievement Frozen in Its Own Light

A player who already had 39 centuries in this traditional format of a sport has now scored his 40th. Yet, follow the narrative, the skill, the jags in the road.

There'll, of course, be much banter-war talk to be hashed out. Has Joe Root finally achieved greatness? Is he considered great by Australian standards?

Yet there exists something deeper about wanting Root to be great in Australia. It’s not about one-upmanship. Every Australian who knows about cricket is well aware Root is a great cricketer.

Root's Hundred as a Solid Handhold

Root’s hundred felt important in other ways, especially as something tangible in the series for this team, a anchor in the ice.

Are England going to win at the Gabba? Don’t know. But Joe Root got a hundred. Did Harry Brook produce a disastrous stroke? Yes. He did.

This was not merely a hundred in Australia, but a brilliant one in authentically tough conditions, an innings that may have saved his team in this series.

It had to start with the team in deep trouble, and England’s greatest modern player coming out at a dire 5 for 2. A chance was put down early in the slips.

The Contrast in the Middle

As the day progressed, England were 3/175. Two examples of elite Yorkshire batting at the crease.

At one end, Root was playing his natural game, relaxed, graceful, watchful. Meanwhile, Brook was batting like a man who urgently requires the bathroom.

All the while, a darkness was coming, the shadows creeping across the ground, and the pink ball genius building up for the crucial spell of the day.

A Damaging Decision

Do you run towards this danger? Yep. No sighters, no feet. Just throw the hands at it first up.

The delivery to Brook was full-length, the edge thick. There is no context where this was a sensible choice.

It was, if nothing else, novel in its abjectness. We have seen England bat in Australia without fluidity. Now Brook gave us the scarecrow, batting without a brain.

Root's Quiet Rebuke

Thus one half of this England team kept faltering, while at the other end Root batted for survival, but for the team's cause.

He delivered his own masterful response, a victory for doing your homework, addressing your flaws.

England are still in this series because he scaled the peak, provided a lesson in what ability in the end means.

Can they dismiss Australia? Will they adapt? Not sure. But Joe Root did score a hundred.