NASSER HUSSAIN: Joe Root's superb century was one of his best innings

After everything Joe Root has been through, trying to steer a struggling side through the difficulties of Covid and the pandemic, that was one of his greatest innings.

But what I think will mean as much to him as scoring a match-winning hundred at Lord’s against a strong New Zealand side will be the reception he got from the crowd, both when he walked out to bat on the first day and when he walked back into the pavilion on the fourth morning with a brilliant 115 not out to his name.

When you reach the end of your reign as captain and results are not going your way, it’s easy to wonder what the public are thinking. But the response Root got at Lord’s would have ended any concerns he might have had. Put simply, he felt the love of the English cricketing public and that will mean the world to him.

He spoke afterwards about how the captaincy had taken its toll on him, how towards the end he couldn’t switch off. To have carried on scoring the runs he did — 1,708 in Test cricket in 2021 alone and now three more hundreds in 2022 — would have been exceptional under normal circumstances. To do it under the shadow of Covid, and with so little help from his team-mates, was staggering.

Rob Key said recently that scoring the runs he did while carrying the weight of the world on his shoulders was one of the greatest achievements in the history of English sport. More than that, he did it all with a smile and not the slightest hint of bitterness. He’s an incredible ambassador for the game.

Ben Stokes would have had two major wishes ahead of this Test — an England win and a hundred for Root. He got both and a big part of that was because of intelligent reading of the situation on Saturday afternoon.

Root has always had a lovely tempo