It was a day when England depended on their “grandfather” to get them to the finish line. That cheeky nickname given to Joe Root, still only 33, by fellow Yorkshireman Harry Brook is enough to make most of us feel old.
But the calm and composure with which Root played in the face of difficult conditions and Sri Lanka’s brave attack to lead England to victory on Saturday was a gentle reminder that you can’t put a price on experience.
After all, the series opener was Root’s 144th Test, 92 more than the team’s next most experienced player, Chris Woakes.
And while there is no shortage of talent among England’s young batsmen (as evidenced by Jamie Smith’s classy first century in the first innings), the absences of captain Ben Stokes and Zak Crawley have left a void of experience to test at international level.
That’s where Root and his 12,131 Tests accumulated around the world are particularly valuable. He’s been there, seen it and done it, time and time again.
Joe Root showed his wealth of experience as England claimed victory over Sri Lanka
Root led his team to victory amid difficult conditions at Old Trafford with 62 not out
And on a devilish Old Trafford surface that showed variable bounce from day one, the elder statesman of the batting line-up used all his knowledge to play a rather brilliant hand of 62 to secure a five-wicket victory.
“I think the fact that everyone else is (younger), those guys keep you young more than anything else,” said Root, who is now just 36 runs away from Sachin Tendulkar’s record for the most Test runs scored in the fourth innings.
‘In this job you can be a bit like Peter Pan: you never really have to grow up, because you think you’re the same age as the guy you’re batting with or the guys around you.
“I think the best thing about it is that we get along really well, even though we make fun of each other. For example, the other day Harry Brook called me grandpa… 33 years is quite an effort to be a grandfather!
“I still feel very young, I feel like I still have a lot of cricket left in me and I’m really enjoying it.”
One wondered whether Root had left behind some of the jovial side of his character after five difficult years as captain. At the end of his tenure, he admitted that the role had taken its toll.
Those gruelling days must now seem a distant memory, with Root still performing at the peak of his abilities against an England team packed with youngsters in their twenties. Not least was Brook, who challenged Root to a run as the pair chased the ball to the boundary in the first innings.
“Oh my God, it was so funny. He was just like, ‘Don’t let him catch you!’ like we were playing a small-town game,” Root explained.
Fellow Yorkshireman Harry Brook has affectionately dubbed Root “Grandpa”.
“It’s great, you want it to be fun, you want to laugh and sometimes it’s nice to forget that there’s anything at stake and just enjoy it and we were able to do that, which is a really good place to be.”
He can be grateful to his team-mates for keeping him young, but seeing Root up close on Saturday will have been an invaluable learning experience for his younger colleagues.
Brook and Smith played key roles in the chase for the 205 runs needed for victory, but neither could convert their promising starts into match-winning innings.
They are still early in their Test careers and watched from the non-striker’s end as Root deftly worked his way to victory.
Aware of the dangers lurking on the swollen pitch and respectful of the tight lines bowled by Sri Lanka’s valiant attack, Root recognised it was not a day to blast his way through the covers, as he usually does so beautifully.
He even suppressed the urge to pull out his backslide ramp shot until the game was all but won. It was somewhat ironic that the one time he used that shot he ended up hitting the ball into his own chest.
Instead, Root joked that he had to channel his inner Nasser Hussain in an innings in which he needed 95 deliveries to register his first boundary, before he finally scored the winning runs with his 128th ball.
“That’s how you judge yourself as a player really, the times you want to be there is after you’ve won the match,” Root said.
‘It was a very slow and turgid course, it lost all its rhythm. The outer course was longer than the semi-rough of most golf courses, I think, so that didn’t help much.
The former captain praised England’s ability to “win ugly” when conditions warrant.
‘For us, being able to adapt and also almost win badly is not something we want to do consistently.
“But to say that we can do it, and with one day ahead and a lot of rain, shows that we still live by all the principles we want, but we are evolving and learning to manage the game better.”
It was also fitting that, in a week when England paid tribute to the late Graham Thorpe, Root, one of his great protégés, turned out to be the match-winner. It was the kind of brave innings that would no doubt have made Thorpe proud.
