Follow UsFor months now, in the build-up to this Ashes series, all the talk has been about whether Joe Root can finally end the ‘Australia curse’ by bringing up a ton Down Under. Root has 39 Test centuries to his name, but remarkably not a single one in Australia.
But given the England talisman has been in career-best form over the last three years, racking up ton after ton, pretty much everyone backed the 34-year-old to finally lift the curse and possibly lead the Three Lions’ Ashes charge.
Cut to the present, who could have predicted Root struggling to buy a run, let alone not being able to score a ton?
After much anticipation and hype, Root’s Ashes 2025/26 got off to a very anticlimactic start on the first day in Perth as he got dismissed for a seven-ball duck by Mitchell Starc. After a fidgety start, unable to get off the mark, Root got a peach from Starc, who squared him up from over the wicket. And Steve Smith made no mistake as the England talisman departed for a duck.
The 34-year-old would have hoped to make amends in the second innings after the false start in the first one. And he had the perfect opportunity to do so as the game was right in the balance when he walked in, with England 65/2 in the second innings, leading by 105 runs.
Root looked much busier as he got off a pair on the very first ball by flicking Scott Boland away, and his body language looked positive, too. However, ‘looked positive’ was the only positive for the right-hander as he once again perished cheaply, this time for 8. And once again it was Starc who dismissed the big fish to clinch his ninth wicket of the Test.
This was a dismissal that was very ‘unlike Root’ as he played well away from his body and looked to drive a ball on the up. Root threw his hands at a ball that was not even a half-volley, and he ended up paying the price as he chopped the ball back onto his stumps.
76/5 read England’s score, as the misery worsened for both Root and the visitors.