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Joe Root intends to button his lip when he comes face to face with his Ashes adversary on Thursday, but he’s more confident than ever that he’ll end his jinx Down Under.
Root, 34, travels to Australia in November as the second-most prolific batsman in Test history, but the lack of an away Ashes hundred has been a focus of the habitual pre-series trash talk, with old foe David Warner wading in by suggesting the Yorkshireman’s ‘surfboard’ of a front pad would be mercilessly targeted by Australia fast bowler Josh Hazlewood.
‘I guess it’s all part of the fun, right? We’ll see what happens out there, but it’s not really in my nature to get too verbal,’ Root said, ahead of his unbeaten Trent Rockets taking on Warner’s London Spirit.
‘What more can I do about it? Just make sure it’s not a talking point in six months’ time or 100 days’ time.
‘It’s nothing new, is it? You know that there’s going to be storylines and there’s going to be people wanting to hype up a big series. It’s business as usual as far as I am concerned.’
That business this summer for Root has been churning out Test hundreds, three of them coming in consecutive matches at the end of the 2-2 draw with India.
Jooe Root is eager to bag a hundred on away turf in the Ashes to end the trash talking
Old foe David Warner has been poking fun at him in the build-up to England vs Australia
And developing such rhythm in his batting has left him in a good place mentally for tackling his final frontier as a true Test great, adding a three-figure score against the Australians in their own conditions and own back yard.
Australia has proved the most challenging of environments for Root during his dozen years on the international stage. Littered with distractions away from the middle, and unproductive on it, his 14 appearances have resulted in a dozen defeats in which he averaged just 35.69.
He said of his hundred hang-up: ‘The thing that stands out for me is that I probably wanted it way too much the last couple of times and it took me away from what was important.
‘Clearly, the last two tours there have been loads of other things to contend with. I was captain. There was Covid. There was the whole Ben Stokes incident, the time before that. There was a Jonny Bairstow headbutt incident as well. So there was a lot of distractions.
‘This time, I just want to go and enjoy the tour for what it is. It’s a beautiful country. It’s a great place to go and play cricket. Clearly, it’s going to be hostile, it’s going to be everything you’d expect and want from an away Ashes series. It’s something you’ve got to relish and I want to enjoy being a part of it and I know that if I put my best performances in, then everything else will look after itself.
‘But you’ve got to immerse yourself in the situation. That’s something I’ve done well recently, just playing the game right in front of me. Using my experience and obviously, having played there a couple of times before, going there with 150-odd Test matches under my belt, I feel like I couldn’t be more ready for it.’
Root recently went past Australia’s Ricky Ponting into second place among Test cricket’s most prolific batsmen and he believes there is no reason he cannot surpass Sachin Tendulkar’s career collection of 15,921 runs.
He is currently 2,378 behind India’s little master, and at his career rate of productivity, it would take 28 further matches — or about two and a half years — to reach the pinnacle.
He believes he can break Sachin Tendulkar's record of Test runs - though it will require 28 more matches at his current rate
Asked whether keeping up such consistency was possible, Root added: ‘Well, I hope so. As a player, more of the motivation is: can you keep evolving? Can you keep finding ways of staying ahead of opposition? Can you make sure that you don’t stand still and become stale, if you like?
‘Naturally with age and with experience, I’ve got a better understanding of my own game and how I want to construct innings in different situations.
‘You’ve got to constantly be figuring out solutions and it’s like chess on grass in many ways. Can you win that battle and can you find different ways of staying one step ahead?’
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