Joe Root's legacy in Australia

What is the Good Areas’ verdict?

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There was a time during this Ashes when the main conversation revolved around Matt Hayden’s dick. The man they once called unit because of his incredible physical prowess was saying that unless Joe Root made a hundred - which to be fair he fully thought he would - the big man would strip. Let the mongoose fly.

And that led to a lot of conversations about Root’s place in the pantheon, probably to stop people thinking about Hayden’s arse.

But the Queenslander wasn’t alone.

“Joe Root is a great player. But is he an all-time great? Because he’s had four [three] goes at Ashes. Hasn’t made a hundred.”

That was Darren Lehmann in November 2024. When asked if he would put Root in the same category as Steve Smith and Virat Kohli, he said a rung below, only because of that reason and that they’ve made runs in difficult conditions against different oppositions - suggesting that was the only thing stopping him.

On his fourth tour to Australia, Root finally notched up not one but two centuries, scoring 400 runs at 44. And yet, he had a median score of only 15, almost as if he was trolling everyone writing hitjobs or hagiographies.

Because you can #RootMaths this in any way you please. Two hundreds in one series, job done, hoodoo over. But you can also say, “Two hundreds, yay, two England losses, booo”. Then you had the bowlers, there was no Pat Cummins or Josh Hazlewood in either of them. The Australian captain matters a lot, as he troubles Root, and when he did play he got the English star twice. So those willing to say Root still has an issue have their talking points.

But on the other side, Root played in a losing series, made two hundreds, and saved us from Hayden’s hangers. At a certain point he did his job, it was the rest of his team that was awful.

But does any of this matter to his legacy? If he had made two 99s, would the nonsense have stuck anyway? You can make an argument that this series really doesn’t change his all-time great status in either direction.

***

In almost 150 years of Test match cricket, no man faced more deliveries than Rahul Dravid. They literally nicknamed him The Wall. India’s former No.3 is undeniably an all-time great.

And yet, his career wasn’t flawless. He averaged less than 30 in South Africa and 33 in Sri Lanka. But perhaps the most relevant comparison with Root might actually be his record in Australia.

On face value, that might not hold up. Dravid’s average in Australia (excluding the one-off Super Test) was almost 44 - even better than Brian Lara, who is one of the most admired foreign cricketers there. Root, even after this series, is still at 38.

When Dravid first went to Australia, it was on the back of solid tours outside Asia in every single country. However, he could only accumulate 93 runs in his first six innings there, as Glenn McGrath, Shane Warne and a debutant Brett Lee all got him out twice each. In 2007/08, he was pretty middling - this included a tortured innings in Melbourne where he couldn’t even edge the ball behind. And he got out bowled six out of eight times in 2011/12 in what would be his last series for India.

The match factor makes it look worse for the last two series. He was well below par in all but one . That, though, was super iconic. He basically won them a Test - again, with VVS Laxman - in Adelaide, and was consistently amongst the runs that summer. A bit like the no Cummins/Hazlewood caveats for Root this time, Australia were also without McGrath and Warne.

Despite a higher average, Dravid’s match factor there is worse than Root’s. The England star averages 3% better than the mean in his games, while Dravid is 4% worse.

Like Dravid, Root’s worst series was his maiden attempt. But there was a wealth of difference in their experience. Root had only played a year of Test cricket and would turn 23 in the middle of the series, Dravid was 27 soon after. We can see that his graph is steadily rising, with a match factor of 1.34 on this tour being his best. So we have a very good, above par, slightly under and bad series each.

There is also a longer conversation to be had about what we mean by someone conquering a place.