Is Joe Root England's greatest? He's great, so what matters it says Chris Waters

But the question, in the broader sense and its various adaptations, is futile – with or without the assistance of the magic mirror dreamt up by the Brothers Grimm.

Who is fairest of all? Who is most charismatic of all? Who is greatest of all? It is always subjective and unquantifiable. One man’s meat, as they say, is another man’s poison.

Which brings us to Joe Root.

As one national newspaper claimed on Sunday, after Root beat Sir Alastair Cook’s record for the most Test hundreds (34) by an England player, the Yorkshireman needs just one more thing to be regarded as England’s best ever batsman – an Ashes century in Australia.

“Rectify the one lacuna in his record: no Test hundred in Australia in all of 27 innings to date… accomplish that, as part of an Ashes-winning team, and then Root can and should be acclaimed as England’s greatest batsman,” the article said.

The piece paid fitting tribute to “the ultimate team man… as fine a human being, as decent a spud, to have represented England”.

And it followed, in turn, Cook’s appreciation from the commentary box at Lord’s (where Root took his record with two hundreds against Sri Lanka) that his former team-mate is, indeed, “England’s greatest”. Others have kindly said similar things, recognising a contribution that has brought Root over 12,000 Test runs at an average above 50.

But the question as to whether he is England’s greatest ever batsman cannot, in this view, be satisfactorily answered 1) at all and 2) in terms of whether or not he scores an Ashes century abroad.

Indeed, as Ottis Gibson, the Yorkshire head coach says elsewhere in these pages, “It’s not the be-all and end-all in my opinion, because you can go and have a really good series in Australia and win, but not necessarily score a hundred.”

Gibson also said – simply and obviously – that “Joe Root is a great player”, one who has “made runs all over the world”. It is, in itself, a sufficient appraisal of a still growing legacy, recognition of the attainment of greatness that none would dispute.

And yet, human nature being what it is, we have this seemingly primeval need to reach absolute conclusions concerning the extent of such greatness, to compare and contrast it to other greatnesses, not only from the same era but across different epochs.

In that latter consideration, especially, the task becomes perilous, like trying to scale Mount Everest without crampons or climbing tools.

For how can anyone say for sure whether Root is, or is not, the greatest?

Is he better than Sir Jack Hobbs, say, who scored more runs and hundreds than any other batsman in first-class history, including nine Test centuries in Australia, or do we simply disregard Hobbs because he operated just before and after the First World War?

Similarly Wally Hammond, said to have been second only to Don Bradman in his time, a man who turned three of his seven Ashes hundreds in Australia into double hundreds? It’s pointless.

Was Sachin Tendulkar better than Brian Lara, one of the great questions that taxed the generation just gone? Not in this humble opinion, and yet Tendulkar had a better Test average and scored more runs.

Similarly, what are we to do with the likes of Sir Vivian Richards – my own favourite batsman, and one of Wisden’s Five Cricketers of the Century, and yet something of an also-ran in the statistical pantheon, one of many great figures jostling for the title “The Greatest”.

Definitive assessments are fraught with danger. The game is unrecognisable from Hobbs and Hammond’s day; players can only be judged in their particular context, and even then it can be a question of preference.

Could it really be said that Root would become, as if by divine decree, the greatest England batsman ever if he did achieve a three-figure score in the next Ashes series Down Under in 2025-26, especially if England win the series?

Or would he not somehow become the greatest if he still managed to score that elusive century but England lost the series, or if England won the series but Root managed only a series of contributions in the 90s?

Surely it is sufficient to say that Sheffield’s finest is one of England’s finest and one of the game’s finest since Test cricket started. His track record, his character, his personal qualities speak for themselves.

So, to the question: “Mirror, mirror on the wall, who in this land is greatest of all?" the answer would have to be: “Why, that’s Joe Root, Your Majesty… perhaps, maybe, feasibly, who knows.”