Joe Root equals Ricky Ponting’s record for third-most Test centuries during Ashes final
The right-handed batter scored his 41st Test hundred at the Sydney Cricket Ground on Monday, achieving the milestone in his 163rd Test match.
The right-handed batter scored his 41st Test hundred at the Sydney Cricket Ground on Monday, achieving the milestone in his 163rd Test match.
The world’s top-ranked Test batter had endured three previous Ashes tours Down Under without tasting success, but that personal drought finally ended as England chased down a target of 175 in a dramatic two-day contest.
With the opening Test in Perth starting November 21, Root has again become a focal point in local discussions, especially given that he has yet to score a Test century in Australia.
Root heads into the series holding a firm lead at the top of the ICC Test batting rankings, but the seasoned campaigner has yet to conquer one of his biggest hurdles, performing consistently against Australia away from home.
While Root is winless in Tests against the Aussies away from home across 14 previous contests, it's the fact he has never scored a century on Australian shores that still concerns the 34-year-old heading into this year's tour.
Root's unbeaten innings brought him to his 27th Test century. According to the ICC, the 31-year-old has 10 World Test Championship tonnes and nearly 1,000 more WTC runs than his closest challenger, Australia's Marnus Labuschagne (2,180 runs).
Former England footballer and current sports broadcaster Gary Linekar, and noted journalist-writer Piers Morgan have been left wondering how a bat could stand upright unaided, with the former indicating that Root could conjure up magic while at the crease.
Both Broad and bowling partner James Anderson were dropped from the Caribbean tour after England's dismal performance in the Ashes in Australia, which the Root-led side lost 0-4.
Stokes plans to bat himself at six and is hoping that prospective players that harbour aspirations of batting in England's recently frail top and middle-order will give him plenty to ponder by scoring a bulk of runs at the county level ahead of the first Test of the summer against the Kiwis at Lord's on June 2.
The two ageing warhorses were strangely left out of England's three-Test tour of the Caribbean earlier this year, with selectors instead opting to give more opportunities to the next generation of seam bowlers.
