Rooting for Joe

Whether the ball is red or white, pure talent can still conquer

- Jonathan Liew

The winning moment is perfect.

Perfect in concept, in balance, in execution, in placement, in flourish.

The ball disappears through mid-on, and before it has even reached the boundary the lid is off and the smile is unsheathed, and for some reason it matters a great deal that the stroke to complete a towering one-day chase of 309 is not a wallop or a swipe, but an artful on-drive for four.

But then for all his brilliance, there has always been a pleasingly jarring quality to Root in limited-overs cricket, even a kind of quiet defiance.

His match-winning 166 against the West Indies on Sunday was perhaps his greatest white-ball innings, but above all it was simply a Joe Root innings, all gentle nudges and classical drives, timing over power, manoeuvrability over muscularity, a triumph of pure talent.

My favourite bit of a Root white-ball innings is when he hits a six. Which he actually does quite a lot - 53 times in one-day internationals, more than Alex Hales, narrative fans - but for some reason never fails to tickle him. As if this wasn't really supposed to happen, as if he's just done something terribly naughty, and his big daft face breaks out into a big daft grin, the grin of an auntie who has just said "shit" at the Christmas dinner table.

"Ultimately, you're playing a game of cricket," Root said a few months ago in an interview with ESPNcricinfo, during a largely unheralded stint with the Paarl Royals Twenty20 franchise. "Most of the basic things within the game are exactly the same.