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In some ways, it's rather prophetic and makes perfect sense that Joe Root is going to play a full-fledged Test series against India. Wondering why? Given he's the one man from the present lot of cricketers who who is expected to break Sir Sachin Tendulkar's Test record, if at all that can happen, it makes perfect sense to note that he's about to play multiple Tests against India and that too, in English conditions.
To say that Joe Root posseses great Test match experience would be, fundamentally speaking, serving an understament of sorts. That is primarily because he has to his name an experience of 153 Tests. But here is where it becomes interesting. Root has played nearly a fifth of his Tests against India, playing 30 of the 153 five-dayers.
Having said that you instantly understand the importance Joe Root holds for his team especially against a Test opponent like India. For starters, the most number of runs that Joe Root has scored in his Test career have come against Team India. So how many are these?
Joe Root's Test records vs India
Of Joe Root's entire tally of 13,006 Test runs, 2846 have come singularly against Team India. That is no ranom state; it carries significant meaning. Root needs 154 more runs to become the first English batsman ever to score 3,000 Test career runs against India.
What's rather symbolic of this mighty achievment and one could say, Root will eventually get there unless a barrage of poor scores spoil his plans, is this:The man with the next-highest tally of Test runs against India happens to be Alastair Cook, formerly a captain with 2,431 runs.
Should Root edge past 3,000 runs against Team India, who'll attack him with bowlers of the class of Arshdeep Singh, Jasprit Bumrah and the likes, it would mean having scored over a fourth of his career runs against a prominet ICC opponent.
Furthermore, Joe Root's sheer daunting stats add further bite with the help of a rather mind boggling statistic. Of his 36 Test centuries, and that in itself is no lame feat, 10 have come against Team India. And even if that in itself isn't alone to measure the mark of this great marksman with the bat, Joe Root Test averages 58 against India.
That is the second-highest average mark he's managed in his Test career; his highest average against a Test opponent being 62 against Sri Lanka.
A man of unsullied character and pure class, what'll be most interesting this time around would be to see how Joe Root competes against Bumrah, clearly in a league of his own where it comes to premier Test match cricket. But with plenty of runs and hundreds galore, Joe could well be the Root cause of India's troubles should things don't go the visitors' way.
