Joe Root: always backed by the team during a century

In cricketing history, Sachin Tendulkar has scripted the history by scoring the most number of centuries (51) in his career of playing Test matches. Among active cricketers, Steven Smith, Virat Kohli and Joe Root are tied at the top with 27 centuries each in their ongoing careers. 

Since January 2021, Joe Root has notched ten centuries to climb up the ladder to become one of the greatest of England Cricket after Alastair Cook. When Virat Kohli scored his last 27th century, Joe Root had only 17 test centuries. Today, they both have the same number of test centuries, and on top of that, Joe Root surpassed 10,000 test runs. It was the 10th time he has reached three figures since January 2021. In the last two years, Joe Root has scored ten centuries to climb up this ladder and become a role model to follow for young cricketers. 

There is a great catch, though, among all the fab 4 - Kane Williamson, Steven Smith, Virat Kohli and Joe Root; every time Root has scored a century, he is always backed strongly by his team. To score a century with grace in a Test match not only requires the player scoring it to be in good form but also cushioning provided by other players who can play that supporting role along with you in the inning. The long-running partnerships in Test matches ease out pressure and help score one or the other player with full potential, unlike when you are trying to score with wickets tumbling on the other end. That builds pressure and restricts a fully flowing score-fetching momentum. 

While Virat Kohli himself was carrying a strike rate of 50-plus in Test matches, a decent partnership with Rohit Sharma or, for a matter, with MS Dhoni in the early days helped him overcome the pressure of stability from the other end to score runs. However, this is not the case now; while he is struggling with a low average and strike rate, he also fails to get support from players playing at the top order. 

In contrast to his case, Joe Root has been able to build decent partnerships with players from top to bottom order. Being at top-order, he has joined forces with lower-order batters to find some of the mesmerising long knocks. He has now partnered with nearly 47 players at least once in Test cricket. 

The partnerships for Joe Root

The performance of these legends does affect the team form. Alone, it's not possible.

A good partnership has always followed for Root whenever he has gone for a 100. A strong 100-150 run partnership, at least. In Sir Alastair Cook's era, he smashed 11 hundred's whereas the number increased to 14 when he himself took over the reins. With Ben Stokes taking over leadership, Joe Root has already scored two tons under his captaincy. 

Lately, the 31-year-old took over Marnus Labuschagne following his impressive 176 in England's victory over New Zealand in the second Test. It included a 187-run stand with Ollie Pope at nearly 4.5 runs an over that formed the bedrock of England's reply. It came following the scores of 109 and 153 in the first and second Tests of the tour of West Indies earlier this year.

Starting from 3rd wicket stand of mammoth 248 runs with Sir Alastair Cook against West Indies in 2017. Joe Root scored 136 in that match, whereas Alastair Cook fetched 243. He built many 4th wickets stands with Gary Ballance, Moeen Ali, and Ian Bell in various games over the years. His most memorable century was the one which he got owing to the support of James Anderson against India at 10th wicket who himself played a superb knock of 81 whereas Joe Root pulled an unbeaten score of 154.

Great players come from great teams.

And thus, we can say that a player scoring a century is just not a matter of him being in good form; it must be backed by other players up or down the order so that the player can play his natural game. 'Stokes-McCullum' era in England's test cricket is turning into one such team that is aggressive in approach, doesn't believe in taking steps, and has shown great partnerships while enhancing individual performances. No doubt they are on track to be the greatest, and no wonder Joe Root will be one of the greatest of current times.