ROOT MASTER

Ton-derful Joe tops charts as England's greatest ever

- MIKE WALTERS

SUMPTUOUS in its execution and technique, there was a familiar panache about the moment when Joe Root became England's greatest batsman.

A perfect on-drive off Aamer Jamal in the first Test against Pakistan took him past Sir Alastair Cook's stockpile of 12,472 Test runs for England, beyond the frontier of greatness and into the realms of the peerless.

Needing 71 to overtake Cook, he carried his bat all day. There was no war dance, no kissing the badge.

Only a class act could have decorated the moment by going on to complete his 35th Test century in the sapping 95-degree heat of Multan so undemonstrably but Root, 33, has never lacked class.

And only misguided punters will now bet confidently that he will neither threaten, nor go past, Indian royalty Sachin Tendulkar's world record of 15,921 runs.