England batter Joe Root has finally crossed the one major hurdle remaining in his career, bringing up his maiden Test century in Australia. In the build-up to the Ashes 2025–26, much of the chatter centred on whether Joe Root would finally end his century drought Down Under. The England stalwart needed only three innings to silence the discussion, producing a phenomenal knock of 138 off 206 balls in the first innings of the second Test in Brisbane.
With that knock, Joe Root removed the only blemish on what has been an extraordinary Test career, one that has reached even greater heights in the post-Covid era. Since 2021, Joe Root has been operating in a league of his own, amassing 5,866 runs at an average of 56.95, including 23 centuries and 17 fifties. Between his debut in 2012 and the end of 2020, he had scored 7,823 runs from 97 matches (177 innings) at an average of 47.99.
While Joe Root was consistent with his bat during his first eight years, his conversion rate during that period was a major concern, with 17 hundreds and 49 fifties. Since then, he has dramatically improved, notching 23 centuries and 17 half-centuries — a substantial shift in converting starts into big scores.
The world can stop wondering now. Joe Root finally has a Test hundred in Australia. It took him 30 innings to get there, an unusually long wait for a player of his calibre, but it arrived on a day when England, trailing 1-0 in the Ashes, needed clarity and calm more than anything else. Under the Gabba lights on the opening night of the pink-ball Test, Joe Root’s unbeaten 135 off 202 balls carried England to 325/9. No team has ever lost a day-night Test after scoring more than 300 in the first innings.
Pitch Report and Toss
Pitch Report : Though there was some focus on the greenness of the Gabba pitch a few days out from the Test, the 3mm grass revelation from the curator has sent a lot of experts into a tailspin, with that potentially meaning a longer Test match if the English do play ball. There are a lot of differences of course between a day-night Test here as compared to the traditional venue for the pink-ball contest over in Adelaide.
Mainly because of how quickly it gets dark here in Brisbane and the lack of twilight period in this part of the world. That’d mean that nearly a session and a half of the Test will be played under lights, which is where the pink ball really starts to play rogue. And that will be the added x-factor to how this Test goes, despite the overall flatness of the surface.
Toss : England skipper Ben Stokes won the toss and chose to bat with Will Jacks replacing injured Mark Wood in the playing XI. Australia skipper Steven Smith bowling first made 2 changes in the playing XI bringing in Josh Inglis for Usman Khawaja and Micheal Neser for Nathan Lyon.
Day 1 : Joe Root’s maiden century in Australia highlights Day 1 as Hosts Australia storms back with yet another 6-fer for Mitchell Starc
England did not finish with more on a fairly honest batting surface was down to Mitchell Starc, the veteran seamer who knows his ways with a pink ball and returned figures of 6 for 71, in the process going past Wasim Akram’s wicket tally (414). It was Starc’s sixth five-wicket haul in day-night Tests. No other bowler has more than two.
While the day belonged to the giants at either end, it was England who quietly took control after winning the toss and choosing to bat. The start was familiar, though. Starc struck in the first over again, drawing Ben Duckett into a poke outside off stump with a length he could neither leave nor fully meet.
In his next over, he sent back Ollie Pope for nought with a chop-on. Root walked in at 7 for 2 with the ball nibbling just enough, not quite Perth-like but lively. Starc beat him second ball, squared him up the next, only for the edge to fly through the slips. That, though, was the extent of his discomfort. From there, he settled.
Zak Crawley helped stabilise England further. After bagging a pair at Perth, he found early rhythm against pace and batted the way England have expected him to on these bouncy pitches all these years. In Perth, his booming drives on the rise cost him but here, he played later and straighter. Crawley and Root added 117 for the third wicket and allayed any fears that England are not up for a fight this series.
Michael Neser, picked ahead of Nathan Lyon in a move that surprised many, broke the stand. He looked the only bowler outside Starc who consistently troubled England and his short ball took Crawley’s under edge to the keeper.
Harry Brook was briefly the most entertaining element of the evening. He danced down to slash a hard length ball on leg-stump through point and kept charging at the bowlers as is his wont. At one point in time, he was almost stumped by a brilliant Alex Carey while trying to scoop Neser, but the England batter went one shot too far when the lights came on. Starc had him caught in the cordon, with Steven Smith taking the catch and immediately gesturing that he barely saw the ball.
Ben Stokes looked troubled and out of rhythm again, and this time fell to a run-out of his own making, with Josh Inglis undoing him with a stunning throw from cover-point. It was the 13th time a partner of Joe Root had been run out in Tests, the joint-most for any England batter alongside Geoffrey Boycott.
From 176/3, England began to wobble, with Brook and Stokes falling to unforced errors. Jamie Smith was the next to go when Scott Boland produced a ball that nipped through the gate.
Starc returned to clean up Will Jacks, Gus Atkinson and Brydon Carse, and Australia likely expected England to declare nine down and throw a few overs under lights at them. Instead, Joe Root and Jofra Archer kept batting on and perhaps took Australia by surprise, adding 61 off 44 balls in an audacious, unbeaten stand. It pushed England beyond 300 with authority and set a new record for the highest tenth-wicket stand in a day-night Test, surpassing the 59 by Tom Blundell and Blair Tickner in Mount Maunganui in 2023.
Joe Root remained the constant through all of it. In the stand with Crawley, in the late surge with Archer, and in the long hours between when the ball nipped under lights and when it didn’t. He abandoned the fiddly dabs to third man, drove through the arc, worked the ball into gaps on the leg side and, unlike Perth, kept England from handing over the advantage they had worked so hard to build.
What Lies Ahead.Â
England have their noses in front at the end of the first day thanks to Joe Root and the last wicket stand with Jofra Archer which has completely deflated Australia. The score is 325 and come tomorrow England would want to add a few more to their tally while Australia will try to take the last wicket quickly and then bat under natural sunshine. An intriguing Day 2 awaits us all one which will tell us which team gains the upper hand in the Test.
Also Read: Ashes 2025-26: Joe Root & Ben Stokes Solidify England’s Position