Joe Root showed the benefits of ditching the England captaincy with match-winning ton against New Zealand

It took Joe Root until his second innings to realise he wasn’t still England captain. Then, finally, rid of the tension the job can inflict on its incumbents he played an innings which scored a three-in-a-row jackpot – a hundred at Lord’s; a win over world Test champions New Zealand; and the personal milestone of 10,000 Test runs.

The evidence of a burden lifted could be seen in the way Root played what has become his trademark shot, the back-foot guide between point and gully – a banker that had turned rogue after it began to bring his downfall, in the final Test against West Indies last March and again here in the first innings at Lord’s.

The margins in top-level sport are minute. When Root’s mind is calm and he executes the shot well he plays the ball very late with soft hands, the angle of the bat such that it ensures the ball’s path is downwards and controlled.

Any anxiety, and there was plenty when he was captain, and the bat tends to meet the ball earlier at an angle beyond the perpendicular, something that happened when New Zealand all-rounder Colin de Grandhomme dismissed him in the first innings.

When that occurs the stroke is less controlled and therefore riskier, though we are only talking fractions of a second. Yet, in precision sports, that can be the difference between success and failure.

Thankfully for England and their supporters, the Root we saw in that second innings at Lord’s was fully in control of his bat and his emotions, which has been his default setting from the off.

You don’t get to become the second England player to reach 10,000 Test runs (the other being Sir Alastair Cook) if you are a jittery sort who runs constantly on adrenalin – as some of his team-mates appear to do with bat in hand.

Root