Nestled in his crib, a baby Joe Root holds a small cricket bat. Now, 33 years later, that same baby is England’s highest-ever Test run scorer. You could say he was born to the role.

Nestled in his crib, a baby Joe Root holds a small cricket bat. Now, 33 years later, that same baby is England’s highest-ever Test run scorer. You could say he was born to the role.

Joe Root would have been about eight years old when I first met him. I was playing with his dad, Matt, for our club Sheffield Collegiate, and Joe and his brother Billy would buzz around the changing ...