It is difficult to recall any Ashes build-up where so little of the talk has concerned the home team’s best player, never mind a series that has generated as much talk as this.
But on a gripping first day here at Edgbaston, Joe Root stepped blinking into the light, his 30th Test hundred but first in Ashes cricket for almost eight years leading the home side to 393-for-eight before Ben Stokes called in one of history’s madder declarations with half-an-hour left to play.
