After 12 balls of increasing tension for the expectant crowd, bums fidgeting in seats and all trips to the bar put on hold, Joe Root opened the face of his bat, glided the ball through vacant fourth slip, and punched the air before it had even crossed the rope. Test century number 33 was in the bag and with it, a couple of slices of history too.
Root has already returned to No 1 in the Test batting rankings this summer but the patch of form the Yorkshireman finds himself in took on an even deeper shade of purple here. He equalled Alastair Cook’s record for Test centuries by an Englishman and drew level with Graham Gooch and Michael Vaughan with this his sixth at Lord’s. Another English great was on his mind in the moment, however, Root looking up to the sky and remembering his late batting coach, Graham Thorpe.
