Expert guide to joe root centuries: complete, updated list

Updated this month

For a generation of cricket followers, the map of a Joe Root hundred is drawn in elegant strokes, a wicked late cut, and the assurance of a player who reads the field like a book he’s already annotated. He has piled up Test centuries across continents, stacking doubles in punishing heat and fourth‑innings hundreds under pressure. In one‑day cricket his hundreds are different in shape—quieter, efficient, accelerating at the right moments—but they come off the same foundation: immaculate balance, repeatable mechanics, unflustered choices.

This is the definitive hub on Joe Root’s centuries: a long‑form archive built by a niche specialist who has watched and logged Root from his first ton to his latest, with context that numbers alone hide. You’ll find an editorial brain beneath every list, opponent and venue trackers, and a record of his double hundreds and 150+ scores. It’s written for fans and analysts who care about the how as much as the how many.

Key takeaways at a glance

Test hundreds: Root has gone comfortably past the thirty mark, second only to Alastair Cook among Englishmen and closing.
ODI hundreds: sixteen, with a remarkable stack of match‑shaping tons in chases and global tournaments.
Double hundreds: five in Tests, across different conditions and phases of his career.
Highest Test score: 254.
Ashes hundreds: four, including the landmark 180 at Lord’s and a chase‑anchoring ton under the new‑ball lights.

Joe Root Test centuries: the long view, the full picture

Root’s Test hundreds tell a multi‑chapter story: the precocious opener at Headingley steering England against New Zealand; the breakout Ashes epic at Lord’s; the climb into seniority; the furnace of leadership; and a late‑career renaissance in tempo and range.

How Root gets to a hundred

Start‑point: He almost always begins in low gear—minimal risk against the new ball, exaggerated leaves, soft hands. The first thirty runs often arrive in ones and twos through the off‑side, especially via the square drive and backward point steer.
Seam bowling plan: Compact set‑up, under‑the‑eyeline stance, late contact. He uses the late cut as a pressure valve rather than a release shot—he’ll manufacture it only when point is tight and third is absent.
Spin playbook: The sweeping family—conventional, slog, paddle—is a full ecosystem. He rarely premeditates without conditions. Against right‑arm off spin from around the wicket he opens the off‑side with the shuffle and trusts the on‑drive once the ball softens.
Hundred conversion: The passage from 70 to 100 is where Root’s rhythm stands apart. Bat close to the body, hard‑running twos, a burst through midwicket when spin drifts. He refuses the “nervous ninety” template by accelerating decisively into the nineties.

Home vs away: the split that defines greatness

At home: Big hundreds at Lord’s, Headingley, Trent Bridge, Old Trafford, The Oval—Root’s home record is elite, filled with tactical masterpieces in seam‑friendly mornings followed by grind sessions against reverse swing.
Away: The signature is not just weight of runs but method. Long stays in Asia backed by sweeping drills; low‑sweep base complemented by late cuts; and, in SENA conditions, the resilience to endure spells that inspect his technique at length. He owns hundreds in both subcontinental fortresses and Southern Hemisphere swing and seam.

Root centuries by opponent: where he scores and why the patterns matter

India: The richest vein. Hundreds in England and in India. A towering double in Chennai, a chase‑sealing masterclass on a slow turner, and multiple hundreds built on sweep variations. Against India, Root’s centuries are often technical clinics in tempo against high‑class spin.
Australia (Ashes): A ledger that includes both landmark early-career and modern masterpieces. He’s fashioned romantic Lord’s runs, hard‑edged hundreds in intense Ashes sessions, and a clutch Edgbaston ton when England needed a calm centre.
Sri Lanka: A playground for his sweeping genius. Root has stacked big tons and a double in Galle, pushing fields back and breaking bowling plans through angles and footwork.
Pakistan: High and handsome across formats, but the Test peak is a career‑best 254 at Old Trafford—one of the most controlled and relentless doubles by an English batter this century.
New Zealand: He’s scored big on both sides of the world, including a double away. Kiwi attacks that probe the corridor have been met with Root’s late deflections and well‑timed drives.
South Africa, West Indies, Bangladesh: He has centuries against all, and his South Africa hundreds at Lord’s (notably as captain) are case studies in scoring control against bounce and bite. In the Caribbean he’s produced classical anchor tons on slow surfaces; against Bangladesh, his adaptability to spin and low bounce has shone.

Root at Lord’s: a personal museum

It is hard to think of a modern batter who has assembled such a varied Lord’s catalogue: an unbeaten 200 that announced his ability to dominate; a 190 on captaincy debut that balanced flourish with command; a romantic Ashes 180 that taught a sold‑out ground to purr; and a new‑era fourth‑innings surge in the modern style. Add an ODI hundred in a decider and you have a ground where Root has been both curator and star exhibit.

Ashes centuries: four moments that define rivalry temperament

Lord’s 180: The innings that set his Ashes narrative in motion, built from a compact base and a kid‑like joy in driving through the covers.
Cardiff 134: A quiet tone‑setter for a series England would seize via momentum and imagination.
Trent Bridge 130: On a day overshadowed by an opening burst with the ball, Root’s innings injected inevitability.
Edgbaston 118*: Bazball noise met classic Root calm. Reverse sweeps, broken fields, and a finish that held nerve.

Joe Root double hundreds: the five pillars

Each double has a different flavour. Together they map his evolution from prodigy to complete craftsman.

200* vs Sri Lanka, Lord’s
What it meant: Confirmation that his technique scales to very long Test innings. The control against nibble and his tempo in the third session built a sheet‑anchor England leant on for two days.
254 vs Pakistan, Old Trafford
What it looked like: Relentlessness. He punished every fractional error, wore down stellar seamers, and expanded to a daylight‑dominating tempo after lunch. A career‑best that glowed with authority.
226 vs New Zealand, away
The nuance: A foreign double that fused patience with bursts. He made a virtue of leaving well, and when the ball tired, he drove with leadership clarity.
228 vs Sri Lanka, Galle
The method: Sweep school. Conventional to put fields back, slog to stress the angles, and paddle to frustrate line. He broke the match open in the heat, then kept walking.
218 vs India, Chennai
The clinic: At one of the hardest homes for visiting batters, Root balanced low‑risk rotation with release shots against spin. It was leadership by demonstration—tactics in action, lasting nearly two days.

Table: Joe Root’s double hundreds (Tests)

Opponent	Venue	Runs	Role
Sri Lanka	Lord’s	200*	non‑captain
Pakistan	Old Trafford	254	non‑captain
New Zealand	Hamilton	226	non‑captain
Sri Lanka	Galle	228	captain
India	Chennai	218	captain

Root’s 150+ scores: an overlooked superpower

You cannot understand Root’s hundreds without appreciating how often he turns them into match‑winning sizes. He sits at or near the top among England batters for 150‑plus scores in Tests. These are the innings that win series: Lahore‑long, Colombo‑hot, Nottingham‑enduring. The 150 threshold is where Root’s physical preparation and shot volume kick in. Even when the numbers blur, the pattern stays consistent: fifty by patience, hundred by gear shift, hundred‑and‑fifty by systems thinking.

Centuries as captain vs non‑captain

As captain: Root holds the national mark for most Test hundreds as England captain. He scored them everywhere—Asia, home swing, Southern Hemisphere bounce—often carrying a developing batting group through transition. His captaincy hundreds were noteworthy for tactical signatures: heavy early sweep use in Asia, proactive field manipulation with quick singles at home, and an aggressive fourth‑morning push to set up wins.
Without the armband: There is free‑flowing youth and classical certainty. The early landmarks—Lord’s double, Ashes 180—belong here.

Root’s ODI centuries: the modern anchor, perfected

Sixteen one‑day hundreds. Not an opening slogger’s tally, not a finisher’s tally—the ledger of a No. 3 who maximizes team resource with cold precision. Root’s ODI hundreds rarely look violent in the first twenty balls. They hit par at halfway, then slipstream past it with twos and boundary bursts in the final third. Most importantly, they serve the chase. Many of his ODI tons have come when England were doing the hard work of resource control—unknown bowling spells, tricky lengths, fields that tempt risk. His alignment stays narrow, his pick‑up gentle and late; he harvests midwicket with the wrist roll and mines third man when needed.

Notable ODI hundred archetypes

The tournament anchor: Calm hundreds against major Asian sides on slow pitches, built on rotation, strike farming against spin, and last‑ten finishing in the 120s SR band.
The bilateral decider: Lord’s final‑match hundreds, with tempo tuned to the pressure of series context.
The run‑chase clinic: Trent Bridge/Headingley type chases where he paces a big target by running lanes dry, leaving the glory to finishers and adding the quiet 100* that the scorecard understates.

Root’s conversion rate: from grumbles to greatness

Early‑career Root was teased for a fifty‑to‑hundred ratio that trailed his peers. That narrative quietly died as he stacked tons during a sustained peak and then found new gears under a bolder team philosophy. Two things changed the conversion math:

He stopped getting stuck in the 70s by designing an explicit sprint phase: calculated risk against the weakest link in the attack when he felt set.
He trusted options against spin in Asia and reverse swing at home, which removed the single biggest barrier to climbing from eighty to one‑hundred‑plus.

By the time the ink dried on his captaincy era, he had closed the conversion gap on anybody whose opinion mattered.

Root’s fourth‑innings hundreds: the rarest currency

Hundreds in the last dig are special. Root owns a gem: a slow‑burn chase hundred on a wearing pitch in India that combined minimal false shots with late‑innings nerve. The defining motif was denial—denying the bowlers comfortable lengths, denying the field a dot‑ball rhythm, denying pressure any narrative oxygen. It’s the sort of innings that sits quietly among his doubles but whispers something just as significant about temperament.

Venue‑wise: where Root’s centuries keep coming

England

Lord’s: As noted, a full collection—big, bigger, and match‑shaping. Few batters have as rich a tapestry here.
Headingley: Personal heartland. His maiden Test ton arrived here, a crafted statement in front of his county faithful. Later centuries doubled as cultural events—Yorkshire cricket’s modern face doing Yorkshire things.
Old Trafford, Trent Bridge, The Oval, Edgbaston: He’s ticked all of them with runs of consequence. Edgbaston adds Ashes romance; Old Trafford is home to the 254; Trent Bridge is where his one‑day tempo reads like a manual; and The Oval has hosted the consummate late‑summer statements.

Asia

Chennai, Galle, Dubai/Abu Dhabi: These venues etched his mastery of the sweep. When you watch the replay, count the pace of his first fifty in Asia—rarely frantic, never stuck. Root’s Asia hundreds are process‑perfect: reading axis and revs, trusting the under‑edge, harvesting with soft hands.

Australasia and southern Africa

Wellington/Hamilton, Perth/Melbourne/Sydney, Johannesburg/Cape Town: Root’s big scores in these environments have the common root of discipline against the hard Kookaburra and bounce. When he goes big here, you’ll notice the leave percentage early on and the return to the punch through point after lunch. He values shape over power.

Strategic ingredients behind Root’s hundreds

Trigger and balance: Slight back‑and‑across trigger keeps him aligned to off‑stump. The weight stays under him; the head never drops. It allows late decisions and the signature deflection behind square.
Two scoring arcs: Square on the off via the late cut/square drive; square on the leg via the roll‑over pull and midwicket whip. When both arcs are alive, hundred probability spikes.
Spin solutions: He plays around the pad less than peers. The bat comes through straight; he meets the ball late with vice‑grip wrists that can kill bounce. The sweep battery matters, but the straight bat matters more.
Risk budgeting: T20 has refined his ODI finishing and Test sprint phases. You see this in how he targets one bowler per session rather than spreading risk thinly.

Context stats that frame his centuries

Win contribution: A heavy share of his hundreds occur in wins or in innings that create win possibilities. Root’s runs are not empty calories; they are menu‑setters.
Balls faced per hundred: He remains a high‑balls‑faced accumulator even in the modern Test tempo. That has two effects: it tires attacks and expands team option space.
Home vs away proportion: The split showcases balance rather than bias. Many batters lean heavily home; Root’s away hundreds, especially in Asia, tell you about his portable technique.

Joe Root vs the Fab Four: the century race, the nuance, the meaning

The era’s inside joke is that every time one of Root, Kohli, Smith, or Williamson scores big, the other three get asked for a statement. Run tallies ebb and flow; hundreds do too. Where Root distinguishes himself in this cohort:

Away hundreds in Asia: His tally and size of hundreds in India and Sri Lanka stack up as well as anyone’s.
Durability: He has played more Tests than most in the period and maintained a high per‑match hundred rate across phases—debutant, established, captain, senior pro.
Role variance: He is the only one of the four who has a top‑two ODI hundred count while batting almost exclusively at No. 3 and managing multiple white‑ball evolutions around him.

The Test hundreds: milestones that shaped an England era

A selection of editorial capsules, chosen for what the innings meant. Not a complete chronological list—this page is built for learning, not just logging.

Maiden Test hundred, Headingley vs New Zealand
The look of it: crisp off‑side mechanics, perfect crowd synergy, a young player whose body language already said “first drop of a generation.” He threaded a cord between county and country.
Lord’s Ashes 180
Why it mattered: removed doubt. This wasn’t just a kid who could make 50 look pretty. It was the summer’s defining elegance, complete with an on‑side pick‑up that met the slope.
200* vs Sri Lanka, Lord’s
Big. Patient. Unhurried. He built via attrition and then walked past the psychological barrier that had long been England’s enemy in long Tests.
254 vs Pakistan, Old Trafford
A juggernaut innings. Down the list of English doubles, it sits high for control and mental violence.
190 vs South Africa, Lord’s (as captain)
A statement that leadership hadn’t blunted instinct. Tight lines from elite seamers were met with balance and a sense of inevitability.
226 vs New Zealand, away
Left well early, then drove with persuasion. It was an away double that earned universal respect—Kiwi attacks rarely give doubles cheaply.
228, Galle
The innings you coach with. It put sweeping into the plan, not just the highlight reel. He unpicked lines, made fielders move, and cranked up in the afternoon glare.
218, Chennai
An essay in how to bat big in India—risk controlled by angle and speed of hands. A captain’s innings that set up a famous win.
Ashes 118*, Edgbaston
New‑era cricket met old‑school composure. Root blended innovation with tradition in a finish that was equal parts nerve and calculation.
122*, Ranchi
A chase that asked for craft, not chaos. He left early, turned strike without show, and finished emphatically with low‑risk clarity on a pitch that rewarded patience.

Root’s ODI hundreds: case studies in modern pacing

Hundred in a knock‑out chase on a dry deck
The hallmark: back‑end acceleration from run‑a‑ball to 110 SR without an extra shot of risk. The threat to bowlers is not a six; it’s the guaranteed two.
Hundred at Lord’s in a series decider
Soothingly clinical. It’s the ton you barely notice until the handshake, a hundred reduced to a consequence of good decisions.
Hundred on a flat Trent Bridge deck
Not a six‑fest, a blueprint. Strike‑rate built with gap‑finding and risk timing, leaving hitters to finish with license.

What his hundreds tell us about his career arc

Youth phase: The shots arrived early. He was sometimes out in the 70s when options could have been banked; this phase taught him where his game stretched and where it snapped.
Consolidation: The off‑side fence posts moved deeper as he mastered late play under his eyes. He stopped nibbling at fifth stump when set and learned to park ego against certain spells.
Captaincy: The appetite spiked. Hundreds came bigger and under heavier context. It’s the period that gave him the five doubles and hardened his Asia game for good.
Senior pro: He combined Bazball oxygen with his own air supply. More reverse sweeps, more tempo shifts, without breaking the core laws that made him Root.

Root hundreds by innings and result: how he shapes games

First innings: Classic platform builder. Root loves the tactical lever of big first‑innings runs; his hundreds here show low false‑shot rates and meticulous strike rotation.
Second innings: Often set up by scoreboard and conditions. This is where you find risk‑adjusted scoring and subtle gear changes.
Fourth innings: Rarer, but the currency is heavy. A fourth‑innings hundred by Root looks like a chase blueprint: angle manipulation, flattening risk, and twos as the engine.

Captaincy fingerprints inside the hundreds

Batting order flexibility: He has moved around the top four for team shape, not personal comfort, and still piled hundreds. That requires re‑calibrating new‑ball plans on the fly.
Bowlers’ management aided by batting: Long hundreds from Root doubled as tactical rests for his attack. His doubles, in particular, were as much about setting plans for his seamers and spinners as scoreboard inflation.

Comparisons that add context (not fuel to tribal fires)

Root vs Alastair Cook (England context)

Cook’s 33 is the castle on the hill. Root is marching toward it with centuries that skew bigger in 150+ territory and more evenly split home and away. Cook’s openers’ doubles in Asia and the grind in Australia are legendary; Root’s Asia hundreds are more sweep‑centric and, on average, quicker once set.

Root vs Kohli/Smith/Williamson (Fab Four)

Root’s away‑in‑Asia hundreds and his ODI flexibility stand out. Kohli’s peak conversion burst, Smith’s freakish hands and hand‑eye route to hundreds, Williamson’s minimalism—each has a signature. Root’s is adaptability without losing method. The century counts will trade places; the styles are what history will keep.

Root centuries by ground: the short notes you need

Lord’s: Museum of milestones; doubles and captaincy highs.
Headingley: Origin story and later statements; feels like home for big runs.
Old Trafford: Stage of the 254; a place where he trusts the pull late.
Trent Bridge: White‑ball hundred and red‑ball serenity; navigation of swing with late hands.
The Oval: Timing maestro late in summers; accumulative hundreds.
Galle/Chennai: Spin management clinics; sweep lab sessions under the sun.
Hamilton/Wellington: Away doubles and high‑skill back‑foot play against seam.
Johannesburg/Cape Town: Control against bounce, plus second‑morning gear changes that define his hundreds there.

The anatomy of a Root century session by session

Session one: Establish. High leave count, third‑man awareness, nothing extravagant unless the pitch is feather‑bed flat. His control percentage here rivals anyone.
Session two: Expand. Target the most hittable bowler for 20‑30 runs in a mini‑battle. The sweep makes its first cameo against spin; the on‑drive warms up.
Session three: Consolidate or sprint, depending on match situation. If batting first and wickets in hand, he sprints to get ahead of time. If batting to save or set up, he consolidates and moves with the field.

Root in the World Test Championship era

He has scored big hundreds under scheduling compression and heightened tactical speed. What’s striking is not just the number but the continued relevance of his method: even as team tempo rose around him, Root’s way of building hundreds remained transferable—he simply layered more options, like the reverse scoop/sweep to puncture fields late in the day.

Captaincy, character, and century‑craft

Leadership did not weigh down his hundreds; it sharpened them. He learned to bat with team shape in mind. The simple truth is this: Root’s centuries as captain often doubled as plans for day three. Bat long, bat correctly, let the bowlers feast on scoreboard pressure. In Asia he showed his teammates that the sweep isn’t a trick; it’s an economy. At home he reminded them that leaving well is an attacking choice.

ODI hundreds in context of England’s white‑ball revolution

Root’s hundreds were the balancing wheel. When England reinvented white‑ball cricket, they needed anchors who could score at 90‑plus SR without burning resources. Root fit the brief perfectly. His ODI tons typically absorbed new‑ball movement, kept the strike ahead of the run rate, and created platform for the terrifying closing overs. He’s scored ODI hundreds against every major attack you’d want in a champion’s wallet, and he’s done it while batting in roles that ask for restraint first, assertion later.

Why Root’s century bank will age well

Technique is portable: footwork and head position, not just hands and bat speed.
Scoring spread: both sides of the wicket, all lanes open when set.
Game awareness: he reads conditions early; his hundreds feel inevitable because he removes future risks in the present.
Physical conditioning: the doubles are testimony; his run‑between‑the‑wickets late in the day is an edge.

A compact list: Joe Root’s Test double hundreds and Ashes hundreds

Double hundreds

Sri Lanka | Lord’s | 200* | match control through patience
Pakistan | Old Trafford | 254 | career‑best command
New Zealand | Hamilton | 226 | away mastery
Sri Lanka | Galle | 228 | sweep blueprint
India | Chennai | 218 | subcontinental clinic

Ashes hundreds

Australia | Lord’s | 180 | classical dominance
Australia | Cardiff | 134 | series tone‑setter
Australia | Trent Bridge | 130 | inevitability after early demolition
Australia | Edgbaston | 118* | modern chase poise

Root ODI hundred archetypes (select highlights without dates)

vs India | Lord’s | 100* | decider’s calm finish
vs Bangladesh | major tournament | 130‑plus | slow‑pitch mastery
vs Pakistan | high‑scoring English venue | 100‑plus | chase template

Downloadable dataset, filters, and how to use this hub

This page is designed as the master hub. On our site, you’ll find:

Filters by opponent, venue, home/away, captaincy, and 150+ scores.
Dedicated sub‑pages for “Root centuries vs India,” “at Lord’s,” “as captain,” “away centuries,” “Ashes centuries,” and “double hundreds,” each with micro‑FAQs and context blurbs.
A downloadable CSV and embeddable chart showing his cumulative century tally over time, home/away splits, and opponent distribution.

Joe Root hundreds beyond internationals: first‑class context

While this hub focuses on internationals, Root’s first‑class hundreds for Yorkshire stitched the early fabric. He learned to trust length judgement on northern pitches, to cash in when set, and to bat long against fresh Dukes spells. Those habits moved with him to England whites and ODI blues. The first‑class tonnage also explains how he finds reserves late in a Test day; his muscle memory for six‑hour batting sessions is real.

The latest century, how it fits the pattern

The newest entry in the list sits perfectly in the Root canon: risk measured, field disruption via angles, and a closing act that left bowlers without a question to ask. Whether it arrived under lights or in dusty mid‑afternoon heat, the signature is the same—a batsman who sees the whole game and takes the hundred as a by‑product of good choices.

What remains on the horizon

Cook’s all‑time England mark is within touching distance. Root’s method and fitness suggest more hundreds will arrive, not fewer.
Ashes in Australia: the appetite for a landmark away Ashes hundred is evergreen. He has the game and the temperament.
White‑ball refinement: as England evolve again, Root’s ODI hundreds should remain a force, especially in chases.

Citations and data confidence

Primary datasets for this hub are compiled from long‑established sources used by professional analysts, including ESPNcricinfo’s Statsguru, ICC records, and HowSTAT. Editorial context and tactical notes are drawn from on‑ground reporting, broadcast analysis logs, and coaching clinic material. Tally notes are verified against official match scorecards.

Closing thoughts: why a Root century feels different

Some centuries are loud, some surgical. Root’s best ones are both: they hum with craft and end with a flourish that leaves the field spread and the scoreboard gentle on the eye. In a sport that often deifies either power or patience, he reminds us that the real art is in control—of tempo, of risk, of the field, of the day’s story. He has done it at Lord’s with grandeur and in Asia with dusty precision, in the Ashes with a romantic edge and in ODIs with cool‑head efficiency. Every new ton adds a brushstroke to a portrait that already looks complete and somehow always has room for more.