Joy and frustration after Root’s slice of Headingley Test history

He had just turned a ball to the third man boundary to complete his maiden Test match century.

Joe Root will score many Test centuries in the years to come but none will mean more to him than the one he shared with 12,000 spectators on a sunlit Saturday.

The 22-year-old was the first Yorkshireman to score his first Test hundred at Headingley and only the fifth Yorkshire player to make a Test century at Leeds after FS Jackson, Len Hutton, Geoffrey Boycott and Michael Vaughan.

“I lost it a bit,” reflected Root on the moment after he dabbed pace bowler Doug Bracewell to the Rugby Stand boundary.

“There was a great atmosphere inside the ground and I got lost in the moment.

“I really enjoyed it and it was obviously a fantastic experience for me.

“It’s something I’ll remember for the rest of my life.”

If Root “lost it” a little on reaching three figures, fist-pumping his arms towards the Headingley faithful, his reaction on being dismissed 10 minutes later was even more animated and revealing.

After edging an attempted cut off left-arm pace bowler Trent Boult to the wicketkeeper from the first delivery with the second new ball, Root banged his bat into the ground in frustration and reproached himself all the way back to the pavilion.

It betrayed a batsman with an appetite for runs every bit as insatiable as that of Boycott before him, and who cursed the concentration lapse that left England 270-5 and handed New Zealand a potential lifeline.

“It was a terrible shot,” conceded Root.

“It was the first ball with the new ball, so it almost left them a chance to get back in the game.

“In cricket you don’t want to give them a sniff and I was disappointed I did that; I play to win and to try to contribute as much as I can towards the team.

“It gave them a chance to get back in the game and I was very disappointed.”

Within those words lay a glimpse into the psyche of a player whose first-class scores this season are 49, 182, 236, 179, 40, 71 and 104.

Root is not only hungry for runs but hard on himself when that hunger is not sated; it is a healthy attribute rather than self-absorption.

Amid the shower of acclaim that has rained on his shoulders, it is important to remember that Root is playing only his sixth Test and that stiffer examinations lie ahead.

Talented young cricketers are hardly uncommon but those with a temperament that allows them to maximise their talent, such as Root, are nevertheless rarer than heatwaves in winter.

When he walked out to bat three minutes before lunch, there was considerable pressure on his young shoulders.

Not only was he playing his first Test on home soil in front of family and friends, but England had lost Jonathan Trott and Alastair Cook to catches behind the stumps off successive balls to slip to 67-3.

It was a tense situation – one which had done little to dispel concerns surrounding the top-order following the earlier departure of Nick Compton, although one eased for Root by the tremendous ovation he received on emerging from the pavilion.

Root successfully negotiated the final five balls before the break before getting off the mark after the interval from the seventh ball he received, digging out a low full toss from Bracewell into the leg-side and scampering a quick brace.

Thereafter, Root lit the lovely afternoon.

Tim Southee was cut for four and then square-driven to the point boundary, prompting the first – and by no means the last – beery cries of “Yorkshire, Yorkshire”.

When Ian Bell fell to the off-spin of Kane Williamson at 3.30pm, the majority of the crowd got what they wished for: the sight of Root batting with his Yorkshire team-mate Jonny Bairstow.

For more than two hours it felt like Yorkshire against the world 
as Root and Bairstow matched each other stroke for stroke, the latter surely leaping ahead of Compton in the process as he visibly rose in confidence to unfurl many of those trademark on-drives and whips through mid-wicket.

Root reached his third Test half-century from 90 balls when he turned Bracewell off his legs to the boundary, Bairstow progressing to his own half-century from 73 deliveries with a sumptuous on-driven four off Neil Wagner that also raised the century stand. The partnership had climbed to 124 from 172 balls when Root departed, quickly followed by Bairstow when he edged Boult to the wicketkeeper after scoring 64 from 99 balls with eight fours.

There would have been no greater fairytale for every Yorkshireman and woman present had Bairstow, too, hit his maiden Test century but that must wait for another day.

Saturday belonged to the brilliant Root; the Yorkshire youngster will re-live it deep into his dotage.

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