Joe Root 'felt different' from the first time I bowled to him in the nets. It is no surprise he has broken Sir Alastair Cook's record, writes Steven Finn.
It has been a matter of ‘when’ not ‘if’ Joe Root would beat Sir Alastair Cook’s England Test run-scoring record.
This was the famous series when we beat India 2-1, the last time they lost at home. I had torn my quad on the first day of a warm-up game in Mumbai and was making my way back to fitness, building up my workload in the nets. I was dragging Root across the crease, moving his head outside off stump and then tried my first inswinger. He played it with perfect balance, eyes level, under his nose to mid-on as though he had telepathically read what I was trying to do.We continued this battle for the rest of the net. I would try to hide the ball, switching it in my hand as I was loading up. I may have even tried ‘marginally’ over-stepping to try to beat him for pace.
He was not overawed. Instead, he was immediately cheeky. The Joe Root grin we have seen so often throughout the past 12 years was there every day of his first tour. He played pranks and got stuck into the environment as though he was someone who was going to be in that dressing room for a long time. Root has an insatiable hunger for runs. When he gets an opportunity to go big, he will rarely throw it away.
The next statistical aim for Root is Sachin Tendulkar’s all-time Test run-scoring record of 15,921. Root is only 33 and at his current rate of scoring it would take him 38 Tests to overhaul The Little Master.
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