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No more Average Joe as Root century seals all-time great status
What a relief. So tangible, you can almost touch it.
Relief that after 12 years and 30 attempts, Joe Root has a Test century in Australia.
Relief that England's chances of competing in this Ashes series are alive.
Relief that Matthew Hayden will not be striding around, external the Melbourne Cricket Ground wearing only his cowboy hat.
The first day of the second Test in Brisbane began with a fully clothed Hayden, son of Queensland, taking the acclaim of his home crowd.
It ended with Root in the limelight - should that be floodlight? - once again delivering when his team and his country needed him.
The Gabba is where English Ashes dreams end before they have begun. At 5-2 and 211-6 there was the real possibility England could be as good as beaten only three days into this series.
Somehow, Root remained the calmest man on Vulture Street to deliver a moment that will endure regardless of the result.
This was a day that toyed with the emotions and tested the ticker. From despair and optimism to downright fear of new England bogeyman Mitchell Starc.
There was a longing for Root - adored not only for his runs, but for everything he has given to the England cap and his downright decency as a human being - to finally fill one of the few gaps on his CV.
When 98 ticked over to 102 with a leg glance off Scott Boland, grown men leapt into each other's arms and the roar from a lower corner of the Gabba might have been heard in Sheffield. Root simply shrugged his shoulders.
Root has been adamant that a personal milestone means very little if England do not return home with the Ashes. He's right, obviously, but the more runs Root scores, the more likely England are to regain the urn.
On this occasion, his 135 and counting has given England a sniff of a first win in Brisbane since 1986, a first win in a day-nighter in this country and a first win of any kind in Australia since 2011.
Root has been present for 16 winless Tests since his first tour in 2013-14.
On that occasion he was the prodigy in a team that fell apart, dropped for the only time in his Test career for the final match in Sydney.
Four years later, as captain and back at the same ground, Root ended up in hospital after batting in 43-degree heat at the end of a 4-0 series defeat.
Another four years on, Root was in hospital again, this time after taking blows to the unmentionables in the day-night Test in Adelaide.
That 2021-22 series, another 4-0 defeat over which Root presided, was the beginning of the end for his captaincy. He had to watch his team be subjected to suffocating Covid restrictions.
This is probably Root's last trip to Australia for an Ashes series. England visit again in 15 months for the 150th anniversary Test, but Root will be almost 39 the next time the urn is contested in this country.
Before the thunderous Thursday in Brisbane, no visiting top-order batter had played as many as Root's 29 innings without registering a century in Australia.
Australians demand success against Australia to bestow respect upon an opposing player.
Darren Lehmann, Root's former coach at Yorkshire and his host at an academy in Adelaide said he would not have Root in the "all-time great" category while three figures in Australia remained elusive.
When Root landed in Perth last month, the West Australian newspaper splashed him across its front page with the headline "Average Joe" because of the absence of an Australian ton.
Now Lehmann, the West Australian, Kylie Minogue, Chris Hemsworth and Bluey the dog must acknowledge Root as an all-timer.
Root said the quest for a hundred in this country was not playing on his mind, but even he looked amped up in England's horrible first-Test defeat in Perth almost two weeks ago. A match total of eight runs was his lowest in a Test for three years.
In Brisbane, arriving amid the wreckage of two wickets in the first 15 balls of the match, Root was tasked with avoiding another England implosion.
He could have been dismissed by his third ball, an edge off Starc just evading the grasp of a diving Steve Smith at second slip. Perhaps it was symbolic of how Root's run-scoring record will forever be out of Smith's reach. From there, Root barely put a foot wrong.
Learning from England mistakes in Perth and his own previous troubles in Australia, Root barely scored through the covers and largely put away any intention to dab the ball behind square on the off side.
Knowing the value of a straight bat on a bouncy surface, 27% of Root's first hundred runs came in the 'V' down the ground - the highest percentage in any of his 16 centuries away from home.
What was most impressive was the change up, then down, the gears, recognising the importance of battling through the tricky twilight period.
Root needed only 94 deliveries for his first 61 runs, then 88 for his next 39. At one point he went 18 overs between boundaries. He attacked less frequently in his second 50 runs when compared to his first 50 and played fewer false shots, too.
Only when Root passed three figures did he cut loose, and Jofra Archer is the perfect partner for a party - Archer's 32 not out is his highest score in Test cricket and a demonstration of a batting ability that has lain dormant during his staccato international career.
Archer heaving a couple of sixes was the inspiration for Root to whip out his trademark - a reverse-scoop off Boland for a maximum. It was the cricketing equivalent of tagging the Gabba. "Joe woz ere".
If Root was the headliner on the opening day at the Gabba, there were plenty in the supporting cast to provide the subplots.
Harry Brook should study Root's thirst for runs and ask himself why he is batting like a glorified slogger.
Brook has all the talent in the world, yet is risking a missed opportunity at making a mark in the biggest series of all. His unfathomable chase of Starc's second delivery of a new spell, just as twilight arrived, was a dereliction of duty.
Brook has been anointed as the next England captain, but is currently batting like a man who couldn't be trusted to skipper a pedalo.
Comparing Starc to Mitchell Johnson might feel like a disservice to the former, given he has the better career record than his fellow left-armer.
But Johnson will always have a place in English nightmares, one that Starc might challenge if he continues on his current path of destruction. Starc already has 16 wickets in the series and for much of Thursday was a one-man attack.
How different might that have been had Australia selected Nathan Lyon? Instead, there was the bizarre situation of off-spinner Lyon standing on the boundary edge, speaking on live TV about how hacked off he is to be left out.
Lyon and Root go way back, former club team-mates in Adelaide. Lyon tells the tale that they agreed to coach each other - Root taught Lyon to bat, Lyon helped with Root's off-spin.
Only one of them can influence this Test - and Root may have already set its course.
Keep your clothes on, Haydos. There is no more Average Joe.
Source: BBC
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