PETER HAYTER

When it comes to being England’s best batsman, a player described without pause by their highest Test run scorer Alastair Cook last week at Edgbaston as a “genius”, the steely maturity behind the boyish looks of Joe Root has been abundantly clear for some time now.
There were many, however, who questioned the good sense in asking the dressing-room joker to become the hard man inside it, when necessary, on the grounds that he would far rather be snipping the ends off socks or doing his Bob Willis impressions than dealing with the serious busi...