All-rounder’s numbers are not too special but he has curtailed England by twice removing their talisman in these Ashes
Decades from now, when some awkward teenager in a biosecure bunker tries to forget about the grimness of the dying planet outside by scrolling through old cricket statistics on their settlement’s offline intranet, they will think that Joe Root in 2021 must have been kissed on the nose by a sunbeam. Not only did he get to spend time outdoors, above ground, with no concern for atmospheric chlorine or flying sharks, but he made runs wherever he went, against all-comers, racing up the record list like a 12-legged scorpion up a respirator pipe.
For his final stanza, the tour of Australia, his numbers will carry on the earlier prolific trend, at least through the first two matches in Brisbane and Adelaide. In neither match, though, has he done what he did in almost every other series this year: make centuries. Touring in Asia, three matches brought him 228, 186 and 218. Four matches in England brought 109, an unbeaten 180 and 121.
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