62 Monday June 13 2022 | the times
SportLV= Insurance Second Test: England v New Zealand
How Root caught up in Fab Four century race
At the end of 2020, Root was ten Test centuries behind Kohli and nine behind
Smith. He’s now level with both and three ahead of Williamson2010 2012 2014 2016 2018 2020 20223020100Joe Root Steve Smith Kane Williamson Virat KohliMatt Henry, a loose drive and an oppor-
tunity gone begging.
Root has come into bat with the team
under the cosh so often in recent times,
he was almost in uncharted territory
when walking out in the 42nd over, the
ball softened, the bowlers into their
second spells. He settled quickly, with a
brace of boundaries from Henry, a
peachy off drive and wristy pull. When
Tim Southee slipped one past his out-
side edge there was a gasp of surprise,but the freedom with which he intend-
ed to play was apparent from the off.
Having tethered his stance to the off
stump in the winter, Pope’s off-side
game had gone missing, but now his
ability to play all around the wicket has
returned. He had taken his overnight 51
to 84 at lunch, but then skipped to with-
in two of his hundred courtesy of four
overthrows immediately after the
break and then a brace of fours, to mid-
wicket off Trent Boult and backwardpoint off Henry. A push through the
covers brought the century, and a smile
to light up Nottingham.
New Zealand were toiling now, ruing
the lack of a frontline spinner (Brace-
well was not introduced until the 68th
over) and missing the indefatigable
Neil Wagner. Running out of ideas, they
packed the off side, hoping to throttle
the scoring, only for Root to manufac-
ture an on drive and a flick out of the
Kevin Pietersen playbook. The ploy
nearly worked when Root attempted a
sweep, of all things, to Southee and top-
edged into no man’s land.
Immediately after tea, Pope top-
edged a hook into the hands of fine leg,
after a prolonged delay for a change of
pads following a dive into his crease.
Jonny Bairstow fell to the second new
ball and the inswing of Boult, which
brought Stokes to the crease. Stokes sig-
nalled his intent when he clipped his
third ball to the mid-wicket boundary
and clubbed his fifth over mid-off,
having advanced down the pitch to
Southee. A straight six off Jamieson was
remarkable for its ferocity and bold-
ness, but he was quickly sated, while
Root’s hunger is undiminished.Trent Bridge (third day of five):
England, with five first-innings
wickets in hand, are 80 runs
behind New ZealandIf there has been a better England bats-
man than Joe Root in the past 40 years,
he has been hiding. Making batting
look as natural as breathing and as
enjoyable as a Sunday stroll on a warm
spring day, Root delighted a full house
at Trent Bridge with his fourth hundred
in his past five Tests and his tenth in the
past 18 months, a scarcely believable
run of form.
This is what batting was designed to
be, at once rhythmical, fluent, pragmat-
ic and bold. He came to the crease on
the hour, went to his hundred just
before tea and shepherded the team to
the close, after the loss of three wickets
in the final session. There was the odd
false note, as there always is, but this
was as good as it gets, as he caressed the
ball all around the ground, with the
occasional flourish through the leg side
that was a departure from the norm.
It was a day for England to remember
the difficulties of what had gone before.
The spiteful pitches of India two
winters ago, the relentless examination
from Australia’s fast bowlers in the
Ashes and the criticism that rained
down in the Caribbean. Here was the
Trent Bridge of Neville Cardus’s
ancient description, where the score is
always 360 for two, and with it an
opportunity to cash in.
Shortly after tea, the scorecard was in
the realms of Cardus, with the master,
Root, and his apprentice, Ollie Pope,
making his second Test hundred — and
his first since January 2020 —
cruising along, the second
new ball in operation and
only two wickets down.
Both played with adven-
ture, though, rather
than an impending
sense of doom, especial-
ly Root, whose quickest
Test hundred this was.
They added 136 runs in
28 overs between lunch and
tea and 142 more came in the
final session, with New Zealand on
the back foot for much of it. It was hard
to recall an England team that had
responded to such a gargantuan first-
innings total so energetically, epito-
mised once again by Ben Stokes, who
came to the middle on the back of the
Root-Pope partnership, swiped two
sixes and six fours in a 33-ball stay, and
departed as if to say: “I told you that’s
how we’d play.”
It’s a fine line between adventure and
recklessness and Stokes is likely to push
it from time to time in an attempt to
transform the mindset of a losing and
timid team. Here, having almost holed
out to the debutant part-time spinner,
Michael Bracewell, two balls earlier,
Stokes duly attempted a repeat and
planted a slog-sweep straight into the
hands of deep mid-wicket. England
were still 148 adrift at this point, and it
needed Root, adding a dash of York-
shire pragmatism to the flair that pep-
pered his innings, to steady things.
By the close, England trailed by 80,
with Root having gone beyond 150 for
the 13th time in his Test career. New
Zealand’s fielding had been just as
raggedy as England’s, with Will Young
the last to drop a very easy chance off
Ben Foakes on the boundary, and Kyle
Jamieson having left the field with
sharp pains to his lower back. Still
ahead, they were in a less dominant
position than they would have hoped to
be with two days remaining, and the
third innings in a high-scoring
game can be a tricky event.
For Pope, one of the
brightest young hopes in
the game, the require-
ment to cash in was
particularly relevant. He
had struggled in India,
when his defence against
spin was exposed, and in
Australia, where he ended
the series in a technical mud-
dle, and had been left out in the
Caribbean to stew over these fail-
ings. Here was a chance to get back on
track in Test cricket and make a per-
manent claim for the troubled No 3 spot.
His move to No 3 was the first big call
of the new management team, one that
they hoped would help to knit together
a batting line-up that had only two cer-
tainties — Root and Stokes — before
this series. So when he went through to
his second Test hundred shortly after
lunch, you could see why Root, firstly,
sprinted fully 50 yards in the middle to
celebrate, and why Stokes could be seen
beaming, and clapping enthusiastically
from the dressing-room balcony.
The one top-order batsman to miss
out on this run-fest was Zak Crawley,
dismissed on the second evening to the
kind of ball that has openers grumbling
about the inequities of life. With each
innings Alex Lees has looked a little
more assured and more willing to put
bat to ball. He did the bulk of the run-
scoring in the opening hour against an
exclusively round-the-wicket line and
looked untroubled and fluent. Then
came drinks, a change of angle fromSecond Test,
day four
England v New Zealand,
Trent Bridge
TV: Sky Sports Cricket,
play starts at 11amWatching Root at fluent
Scoreboard
NEW ZEALAND First Innings 553
D J Mitchell 190, T A Blundell 106Umpires M Gough (England) and
P Reiffel (Australia).
First Test England won by five wickets
(Lord’s). Third Test: June 23–27
(Headingley).ENGLAND First Innings R
Overnight 90-1
A Z Lees
c Mitchell b Henry
Flighty drive, edged to first slip67O J D Pope
c Henry b Boult
Top-edged pull towards fine leg145J E Root
not out163J M Bairstow
c Blundell b Boult
Good length, gloved behind8*B A Stokes
c Boult b Bracewell
Mistimed slog-sweep, simple catch46@B T Foakes
not out24Extras
(b 12, lb 3, w 1)16TOTAL (5 wkts, 114 overs) 473M J Potts, M J Leach, S C J Broad and
J M Anderson to bat.
Fall of wickets 1-6, 2-147, 3-334, 4-344,
5-405.
Bowling Southee 28-1-119-0; Boult
26.3-5-89-3; Henry 27-5-128-1; Jamieson
16.3-3-66-0; Bracewell 14-2-48-1; Mitchell
2-0-8-0.Mike Ather ton
Chief Cricket
CorrespondentEngland v New Zealand