England’s new cricket regime of captain Ben Stokes and coach Brendon McCullum got off to a winning start at Lord’s last week although they had to thank former skipper Joe Root for getting them over the line.
A five-wicket victory over New Zealand sounds comfortable enough, but the match was up for grabs until Root bailed England out with a magnificent 115 not out.
Root was ably supported by Stokes and wicketkeeper Ben Foakes who contributed 32 not out in a 120-run match-winning partnership.
Root had only recently resigned the captaincy after a run of poor results, although throughout that time his batting had been of the highest standard.
When he reached his century last Sunday he also notched 10,000 runs for his career.
By a strange coincidence he achieved this at the age of 31 years and 157 days, exactly the same age as Alastair Cook when he reached the same…
