Joe Root wiped away the only blemish on his Test career with a shrug as he powered his way to one of the best centuries of his illustrious career at the Gabba on Thursday.
Root was jubilant after notching his first ton in Australia on his fourth tour to England’s Ashes nemesis and after acknowledging the crowd, he turned to his dressing room with a shrug of the shoulders as if to say what was all the fuss about before raising his bat in their direction.
The 34-year-old record-breaker finished the day on 135 not out from 202 deliveries with 15 fours and a reverse-ramp six late in the evening when he opened his shoulders to play some outlandish Bazball-style shots after taking a conservative approach on the way to triple figures.
After 76 from Zak Crawley earlier in the day, England are in a strong position heading into the second day as they try to square the series at 9-325 with Root and Jofra Archer smashing the tiring local attack in the closing overs.
“We definitely won that last hour,” Crawley said. “We’re positive going into tomorrow.”
Crawley lauded Root’s ability to weather the early storm after coming in at 2-5.
“It was doing plenty when he first came in,” Crawley said.
“He was so calm and he was so clear as well about how he wanted to go about it.”
Crawley defended the decision not to declare so that the Aussie top order had to face a testing session late in proceedings.
“There was no talk of a declaration,” he said. “We were just saying, ‘Go really hard,’ and it was a win-win: if it comes off, then we’ll get 50 runs like we did, or if you got out, then we could have a crack at them under lights.
“They’re valuable runs and it would’ve worked out either way,” he said.
“We were pretty happy with [being bowled out for] 260 and having an hour at them at that point, to be honest.
“We were quite optimistic about that last hour, and then it turned out we batted for all of it. It felt like it was a great chance for us either way, with bat or ball, to seize that last hour.”
England seamer Mark Wood, wearing a brace on his left knee, provided an update on his injury situation.
“I think there’s a chance” of being ready for the next Test in Adelaide but “more realistically, it’s probably more Melbourne and then [the SCG] after that.
“I need to get out of this first to get moving around.”
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