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.
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 a sixth at Lord’s; rarefied air for a cricketer who has never been anything but down to earth.
Harry Brook had the temerity to call Root “grandad” recently but at 33 years old and claiming to feel more like Peter Pan in this refreshed England team, there is the promise of more to come; more mountains to climb, like scratching the itch of a first century in Australia in 18 months’ time or perhaps even an assault on Sachin Tendulkar’s record 15,921 Test runs, Root sitting 3,647 away at the time of writing.
We may be getting carried away here and on the opening day of this second Test, as Sri Lanka sprung a surprise by opting to bowl first under blue skies and high clouds, England were simply grateful for another Root masterclass that was as vital as it was easy on the eye. Before Peter Pan came a bit of a Lost Boys performance from the top order, three gift wickets in the morning that, with a lengthened lower order, made it imperative for a middle-order player to deliver an innings of substance.
At stumps, after two arm-wrestle sessions were followed by a surge of late runs in the third, England had reached a healthy 358 for seven. Root had fallen 45 minutes before the close and to a shot that, even with his 143 runs from 206 balls to his name, will invite criticism from quarters. At least he waited that long to bring out the reverse scoop and, as was the case in Mount Maunganui in early 2023 and Rajkot back in February, will doubtless claim that execution, not intent, was the problem here.
It had also been party time at the other end, Gus Atkinson having walked out at a seemingly troublesome 216 for six and delivering an unbeaten 74 from 81 balls, as 158 runs flowed after tea overall. It may be that the good people at Wisden have one of their five cricketers of the year in the bag already, with Atkinson, 26 wickets so far in his maiden Test summer, demonstrating the second string to his bow by cracking five fours and four sixes. Matt Potts, who has worked assiduously on his batting this summer, will resume alongside him in the morning on 20 not out.
As well as some tigerish fielding from Sri Lanka’s fielders, it was Lahiru Kumara who kept Root honest during that tense 10-minute wait to turn 99 into triple figures. Recalled by the tourists after the five-wicket defeat in Manchester, the right-armer added a bit of heft to Dhananjaya de Silva’s attack and could have finished with more than the two wickets he claimed. After bouncing out Chris Woakes – Asitha Fernando juggling at long leg – Kumara twice saw Root squirt inside edges past the stumps.
Kumara had also delivered the first breakthrough after his captain’s surprise decision at the toss, Dan Lawrence seeing a scratchy third outing as a makeshift opener ended on nine when he walked down the pitch and edged a drive behind. Ollie Pope was nearly undone immediately by Kumara’s extra bounce before a pretty galling top-edged pull off Asitha that proved his downfall for one; the kind of shot that not even the inherent wastage of England’s aggressive outlook overall can justify.
Root instantly showed Pope how it was done, a near identical follow-up from Asitha instead clipped around the corner with Swiss-clock precise timing to get off the mark with a four first ball. There was one heart-in-mouth moment on 11 – an lbw shout from Kumara that was turned down on the field and shown to be umpire’s call, only clipping the leg bail, on review – but thereafter it was a largely frictionless affair that once again underlined his wide-ranging array of low-risk scoring options.
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Ben Duckett will argue that his demise for a typically sprightly 40 from opener came from a low-risk – there is no such thing as a no-risk – shot, such is his proficiency playing the reserve sweep. Still, it felt a bit of a bonus for Prabath Jayasuriya on a day when the left-arm spinner was chiefly deployed to keep things dry from over the wicket at the Nursery End while the seamers rotated with the Pavilion behind them.
All three also had natural variation from the slope to worth with, the bustling Asitha nipping one into Harry Brook’s pad on 33 after lunch and Milan Rathnayake getting one to straighten for Jamie Smith to feather behind for 21. Root, who steered England to 97 for three at lunch and 200 for five by tea, was all too wise to it, however. Lord’s, where he needs a further 97 runs to pass Gooch’s record Test tally of 2,015 on the ground, is very much home from home.