It was a day when England relied on their ‘grandfather’ to pull them over the line. That cheeky nickname, given to Joe Root, still 33 years young, by fellow Yorkshireman Harry Brook, is enough to make most of us feel old.
But the calm and composure with which Root played despite the tough conditions, and the brave Sri Lankan attack that guided England to victory on Saturday, were a gentle reminder that you can’t put a price on experience.
After all, the opening match of the series was Root’s 144th Test, 92 more than the next most experienced player in the team, Chris Woakes.
And while there is no shortage of talent among England’s young batsmen – as evidenced by Jamie Smith’s classy first century in the first innings – the absences of captain Ben Stokes and Zak Crawley have left them lacking in Test match experience at international level.
That’s where Root and the 12,131 Test runs he has accumulated around the world prove particularly valuable. He’s been there, seen it and done it, time and time again.
Joe Root showed his wealth of experience as England secured victory against Sri Lanka
The 33-year-old led his team to victory despite the tough conditions at Old Trafford
And on the devilish Old Trafford surface, which had shown varying degrees of resilience from day one, the senior batsman used all his knowledge and played a brilliant hand of 62 to secure a five-wicket win.
“I think the fact that everyone is (younger) keeps you young,” said Root, who is now just 36 runs shy of Sachin Tendulkar’s record for most Test runs in the fourth innings.
‘In this work you can be a bit like Peter Pan: you never really have to grow up, because you just think you’re the same age as the boy you’re playing with or the men around you.
‘I think it’s really nice that we all get along really well, even though we make fun of each other. I mean, Harry Brook called me Grandpa the other day… I mean, 33 is a good attempt at being a Grandpa!
‘I still feel very young. There’s still a lot of cricket in me and I’m just really enjoying it.’
You wondered if Root had lost some of the jovial side of his character after five trying years as captain, and towards the end of his reign he admitted that the role had taken a considerable toll on him.
Those gruelling days must now feel like a distant memory, with Root still at the peak of his powers in an England team full of fresh-faced twenty-somethings, not least Brook, who challenged Root to a race when the pair chased the ball to the boundary in the first innings.
“Oh my god, it was so funny. He just said, ‘Don’t let me catch you!’ like we were playing a village game,” Root explained.
Root is affectionately called ‘Grandpa’ by his Yorkshire colleague Harry Brook
“It’s great, you want it to be fun, you want to laugh and sometimes it’s nice to forget that there’s anything at stake and just enjoy it. We’ve managed to do that, and that’s really nice.”
He may be grateful to his team-mates for keeping him young, but for his younger colleagues, watching Root play up close on Saturday will be invaluable.
Brook and Smith both played key roles in the hunt for the 205 runs needed for victory, but neither could convert their promising start into a winning innings.
They are still at the beginning of their Test careers and watched from the non-striker’s side as Root expertly battled his way to victory.
Root was aware of the dangers lurking on the field and respected the rigid lines of Sri Lanka’s brave attack. He knew that this was not a day to break through the sheets, as he usually does beautifully.
He even suppressed the urge to roll out his reverse ramp until the game was almost won. It was somewhat ironic that the one time he did execute that stroke, he hit the ball against his own chest.
Root joked that he instead had to channel his inner Nasser Hussain in an innings that saw him need 95 balls to hit his first boundary, before eventually hitting the winning runs with his 128th ball.
“That’s how you judge yourself as a player. You only want to be there when you’ve won the game,” Root said.
“It was a very slow, swollen pitch, it lost all its speed. The outfield was longer than the semi-rough on most courses, I think, so that didn’t really help.
The former captain praised England’s ability to ‘win ugly’ when the circumstances demand it
‘To adapt and even almost win ugly, it’s not something we want to do consistently.
“But to say that we can do that, and it takes another day and it rains a lot, shows that we are still living by the principles that we want, but that we are developing and learning to control the game better.”
It also felt rather fitting that England spent a week paying tribute to the late Graham Thorpe, with Root, one of his greatest protégés, proving to be the match-winner. It was the kind of audacious innings that Thorpe would no doubt have been proud of.