The Ashes 2025: Joe Root’s struggle to score a Test century in Australia analysed

If we look deeper, Root’s problems in Australia have come almost exclusively against fast bowling.

He averages 74.33 against spinners down low, even as his Ashes career coincides with that of Australia’s recent great off-spinner Nathan Lyon.

More specifically, Root’s problems came while facing full or good deliveries from the trackers, where his average dropped to 26.9 and 26.2 respectively.

When the ball is short, even on fast surfaces, this average rises to 63.

The difference is stark.

The phony Ashes war began in the summer when David Warner described Root’s front board as a “surfboard”, suggesting he was a low-weight candidate.

While it is true that Australia targeted Root’s pads at the start of the 2017-18 series and dismissed him in this manner twice, eight of Root’s ten dismissals in the recent series below were deliveries that would have missed stumps.

Even in England in 2023, five of Root’s six dismissals of Australian pacemen did not threaten the timber.

Australian plans have changed – or at least, Australia is using this slingshot in pads more economically.

Of those 10 dismissals in the 2021-22 season, seven were from balls bowled from 6-8 meters from the stumps – considered a “good” length – and nine were seamed wide.

This resulted in eight catches between the wicket-keeper and gully – four of which Root attempted to direct to third man from either the front or back foot.

“In Australia they say horizontal bat shots are the best solution because if they bounce they will fly over the top,” says Vaughan.

“Those straight shots in Australia, the back-foot punches, are OK after 30 or 40 times when the kookaburra is a little bit softer and doesn’t slide off the surface, but in the first 10 or 15 times when you start playing those straight shots, there’s a chance it will bounce more than you expect.”