Image: Joe Root after his maiden Test Century in Australia / © Twitter/X
Root made his Test debut in Australia 16 times without scoring a Test century until now, with the exception of 10 fifties before this Test match. After having a rough start to the series in Perth, where Root was dismissed for a duck in the first innings and eight runs in the second innings, he was able to finally score a century in Australia, which is also a significant milestone in his Test career.
In addition, Root now has over 1000 Test runs in Australia and would have made history by becoming the first batter ranked in the top seven as per ICC player rankings to score over 1000 runs as a visiting player without ever scoring a century in that country.
As Joe Root celebrated his latest achievement, the comments of Matthew Hayden from before the series gained significant traction on social media. The legendary Australian cricketer had expressed considerable confidence that Root would put an end to his lengthy run of not scoring a century, and he made an outlandish bet that if Root did score a century this time, he would walk naked at the MCG.
After Root scored his century, fans quickly remembered Hayden’s comment and expressed their relief that Root had broken his century drought, as well as poking fun at Hayden for his overconfidence in Root’ abilities.
Hayden congratulated Root on the century and had a good laugh about his pre-series prediction. Hayden said:
Congratulations mate. No one had skin in the game than me, literally. I was backing you for a hundred in a good way. Congratulations. 10 fifties and a hundred. You ripper mate.
Root’s century allowed England to reach 300 against Starc’s six wickets.
Watch the video how Matthew Hayden expresses happiness after Joe Root’s century: