Posted by Where are we now with Joe Root hundreds?
Last month we were asking at what point a Joe Root innings becomes noteworthy? Our point was that a mere hundred from Root doesn’t really feel like big news any more. It needs to be at least a ‘daddy’ hundred for people to feel like it warrants a headline.
Immediately after we wrote that piece, Root uncovered the ‘hundreds in successive Test matches’ workaround. By reaching three figures match after match after match, that became a thing in itself and he bypassed the need to get to 180 or 190 or whatever the ‘Joe Root innings becomes remarkable’ threshold has inched up to by this point.
But then he made a mess of things. By making daddies more often than not and by turning most of those daddies into doubles, he’s sailed through remarkable and emerged the other side – or at the other end, perhaps – because the presence of Joe Root at the crease while England are batting is now pretty much a given.
Just as you can always assume that ITV will be showing at least one of the Jurassic Park films at some point over the weekend, so you can assume that if England are batting, Joe Root is batting.
Like a favoured old T-shirt or your everyday loaf of bread, he has become a thing that works perfectly well that you don’t really need to think about much.
Sometimes Root gets out – but even then, what’s your reaction? Do you feel like he’s built a platform or do you feel like England’s innings is fundamentally over and now there’s a bit of dead time until the opposition start batting?
This is where we are with Joe Root hundreds.
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Joe Root’s performances are a bit disappointing, frankly.
Five double-hundreds, but he’s only scored a daddy-double-hundred once and hasn’t done so for nearly five years.
He keeps getting out between 200 and 250. Will Root ever learn?
I watched every ball of day two. Now I’m feeling quite sick.
Get thee an afternoon nap, lad. After that, man up!
Afternoon nap? I’ve got three small children.
Mission ‘man up’ starts now. A fourth strong coffee in 12 hours is definitely a good idea.
Skimming your reply, I thought you were saying:
“…I’ve got three small children. Mission ‘man up’ starts now. A fourth [child] in 12 hours is definitely a good idea…”
Then I read your comment properly.
Just reading some of your articles in 2017, KC and wow England’s batting has improved since then.
In 2017, you were pleading for some mediocre batsmen that would average in the 30’s. Now we have an abundance of batsmen that average in late 30’s in most positions. Burns, Crawley, Bairstow, Pope, Lawrence and Foakes are all batsmen that are/probably wil average in the 30’s. Many of those are young and have potential to be future England mainstays.
I also bet you didn’t think that Dom Sibley would be the successor for Alistair Cook.
Not sure really, but his was a selection we approved of, simply because he’d been making an arseload of runs in county cricket and seemed to be doing something right.
And then there is the loud, dramatic, synthesised quasi- classical music they play at milestones. For the first two or three notes it sounds like it might be Elgar’s Nimrod, then it gives up any pretence of melody and just brays for a few seconds.
It took me almost two whole days to realise the annoying siren that blares out now and again is not a passing police car, but the ‘no ball’ alarm.
In other news…
…debutant Kyle Mayers just scored an unbeaten double-hundred in the fourth innings to help the West Indies win an unlikely test away to Bangladesh.
Late developer getting a test debut at 28. According to his Cricinfo bio, there were significant doubts about his ability to bat against spin.
Kyle Mayers.
After dissing C4’s social media teatimes, I may have made rather a hypocrite of myself by featuring on Cricinfo’s Polite Enquiries today.
As a proud moment, it is second only to to my tale of spotting Dickie Bird appearing in the much lamented Cricket Badger newsletter.
Did you see extra:
Daisy and I have been bemoaning Dom Bess interviews ever since the lad started playing for England. To be fair, he is very young and has earned his right to be interviewed on several occasions, but the inanities and platitudes that come streaming from his mouth have to be heard to be believed.
Still, we wouldn’t have wished this on him – https://youtu.be/viHWb9NNrq8
It’s hard not to laugh, especially when he bravely/mindlessly tries to carry on regardless. Still, Dom Bess doesn’t strike us as head boy material. (Did you see what I did there?)