Former Australian batter Darren Lehmann has hailed England batter Joe Root as “the best player outside of Bradman” following his second century of the Ashes series.
Root scored a superb 160 off 242 balls before being caught superbly by Michael Neser off his own bowling after lunch on day two of the Sydney Test.
The former England skipper famously entered this series having played 14 Tests in Australia without scoring a century, a glaring blight on his otherwise stellar Test career.
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Despite averaging 50.94 with the bat heading into the series and being firmly ensconced as England’s most prolific run scorer, Lehmann classed the Yorkshireman as “a rung below” contemporaries Steve Smith, Kane Williamson and Virat Kohli.
“He is a rung below for that reason,” Lehmann said in 2024.
“They’ve made runs all over the world in difficult conditions against different oppositions, and that’s the only thing stopping Joe Root. I think he’s a great player, but is he an all-time great?
“I don’t have him in that realm. I think you’ve got to make hundreds all around the world. Smith does, Williamson has, Kohli has, [Rohit] Sharma has — I mean, they’re world-class players.”
That statement came despite Root having registered tons in every other Test-playing country bar the UAE (three Tests) and Bangladesh (two Tests).
Joe Root reached his second century of the series and second ever in Australia. (Getty Images: Philip Brown)
After scoring just eight runs across two innings in the chaotic first Test in Perth, Root may have wondered whether he would be doomed to repeat his frustrations on Australian soil.
But in Brisbane, Root finally broke his century drought in Australia with a sensational 138 in the pink ball Test at the Gabba.
And he added another with an equally sublime ton in the final Test at the SCG, reaching his milestone off 146 balls.
It was his 41st Test century in his 163rd Test match, equal fourth most of all time behind retired Sachin Tendulkar (51) and Jaques Kallis (45), level with Ricky Ponting.
Incredibly, it was Root’s 24th Test century in the 66 Tests he has played since 2021, a total which on its own would be enough to rank him third overall in English Test cricket history.
“I’ve said it before, once he ticked off the hundred in Australia, he’ll be the greatest player outside of Bradman, statistically,” Lehmann said on ABC Radio.
“He’ll break all the records. He’ll beat Tendulkar, he’ll make more hundreds than anyone else.
“And it’ll take a lot of catching because he’s quite fit.”
Joe Root has said he has no plans of retiring any time soon. (Getty Images: Darrian Traynor)
Root, who turned 35 on December 30, has given no indication that he has any designs on announcing any plans for his retirement, saying last year he hoped to at least play until the 2027 Cricket World Cup.
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Tendulkar played the last of his 200 Test matches when he was aged 40.
And, with time on his side, Root is eyeing up Tendulkar’s record tally of 15,921 Test match runs, although he is currently more than 2,000 runs behind the Indian great on 13,906.
Scoring his second century of the series at the SCG would have been particularly pleasing for Root. It was in Sydney that he was dropped for the one and only time in his Test career during the 2013/14 season.
He was also forced to retire hurt at the venue in 2018 after suffering from dehydration, diarrhoea and vomiting in temperatures that reached 43.7 degrees Celcius.
He had scored 83 in the first innings and retired at 58 in the second as Australia won by an innings and 123 runs.
