When Joe Root was seven, a butterfly landed on his shoulder. It was vast. Vibrantly colourful too. And it sat there for minutes, apparently enchanted by the bright white bounce of the young boy's hair. Root's school friends gathered around, in awe as this giant insect hitched a ride.

Root was on a school trip to the Tropical Butterfly House, close to where he grew up in the South Yorkshire village of Dore, a short stumble from Sheffield. Some of the kids who were there that day - as well as a primary schoolteacher - still recall that incident, 16 years on. There is a phrase they all use for Root when telling this story: "the chosen one". People, you see, are suckers for destiny.

Root would become used to attracting attention. From butterflies to school cricket coaches to Yorkshire scouts and, finally, to England's management, one after another they were drawn to his angelic glow.

Now, at 23, in an England team of rookies and start-ups, he stands as a batsman senior before his time. So just how far can Root go, and where did the chosen one come from?

At just two days old, Joe Root was holding a cricket bat. A tiny, handmade bat crafted by his father, Matt. There is a photo to prove it, Joe clutching the handle, asleep atop a Tom and Jerry blanket.

Cricket is at the centre of the Root family in a way that is increasingly rare in England. They are picture-postcard Yorkshire: Matt is a respected batsman at South Yorkshire giants Sheffield Collegiate, where Michael Vaughan first made his name; mum Helen rarely misses a match; granddad Don - Sir Don to those who know him - was named after Bradman; Joe's younger brother Billy turned out for Nottinghamshire's 2nd XI this season.

Talent showed early. Chris Stewart, the Dore primary schoolteacher who witnessed the butterfly incident, also captained Collegiate's second team. He remembers Root as a mini Rahul Dravid in school matches: a tiny wall resisting everything, so that he was eventually made to bat left-handed, on one leg, and with one eye shut. Only when both eyes were closed were they finally able to get him out.

Young Root ate, netted, slept, ate, netted, slept. He dragged a cricket bat around like a comfort blanket, stopping in front of mirrors to practise shadow shots. At 11, there was a stint at the Nottingham Forest football academy. He gave it up because it was getting in the way of Sunday nets.

Cook is shy, almost suspicious; Root is an easy presence: a doer and a leader of the pack

Across clubhouses in South Yorkshire, from bar stool to bar stool, opposition players would tell Collegiate seniors over a pint that they had a right good player in that young lad, the reedy teenager with Lego legs and cumulus hair. Remember the name, the Collegiate folk would reply: Joe Root.

The rise of Root was a smooth elevator journey from higher level to higher level. He was awarded a scholarship with Yorkshire at 13. Kevin Sharp, the county's former batting coach, thought Root would open for Yorkshire the first day he saw him. There was, Sharp says, something special about him: he listened and asked the right questions. He already thought like an adult.

An unaffected, polite nature meant he was popular at school and with team-mates. For Collegiate, Root led the youth teams. Not because he was the best player but because he was the best captain - in Yorkshire you have to earn the captaincy. While playing for adult teams he would advise the skipper and, unusually for one so young, set his own fields when bowling - first medium pace, then offspin. When batting with senior players, many three times his age, he would always be talking between overs, saying to them, "Right, this is what we have to do."

Root's trait of smiling back at bowlers was fostered in this environment. Faced by a boy whose oversized helmet made him look like Kenny from South Park, opposition bowlers got stuck into him. They thought they could roll this little blond kid over. Quickly repelled, these grumpy, bulky bowlers switched to default defensive setting: abuse. Root would stand his ground. He would laugh it off, as Vaughan had done 15 years earlier. The son of Sheffield was quietly displaying some of its famous steel.

Dave Seal, vice-chairman of Sheffield Collegiate, has a story to tell about that steel: "I remember when Joe was playing in the 2nd XI," he says. "He was batting with an older lad, another promising player. Joe was in the 90s and this lad ran him out horribly. It would have been his first men's hundred. He walked off, came up the stairs. He didn't complain, he didn't chuck his kit. He just dealt with it. He was calm. Disappointed, but calm.

"The other lad came off later, but Joe didn't curse him at all. Some youngsters would've been cursing, but not Joe. It said a lot about his character." It was this character that would help establish him in Yorkshire's County Championship side in 2011, where he bounced between opening and No. 3 in a strong batting line-up. He scored just one century, but 937 runs in 30 innings was some opening statement.

In late 2012, Root was due to captain England Lions in Australia. Instead, after 36 first-class matches and four centuries for Yorkshire, he received a call-up into England's squad to tour India. Aged 21, he was joining England on their first venture under Captain Cook and Reintegrated Pietersen.

Clockwise from top left: Baby Joe, two days old, with a bat in hand; being coached by Kevin Sharp at Headingley; mowing the strip at home © Matt Root

Root was there to listen. To learn. To complete a Team England education that had already taken in, at various levels, Australia, Bangladesh, New Zealand, the UAE, South Africa, Sri Lanka and the Caribbean. This tour would be his final polishing, one last chance to ensure he was spick and span before being allowed out of the England Cricket Board's incubation chamber and onto the pitch.

He wasn't there to play. But he did.

England were on the verge of their first series win in India for 28 years. Avoid defeat in the final Test in Nagpur and they would become the history boys. The press wondered which one of Eoin Morgan, Jonny Bairstow and Samit Patel would bat in the malfunctioning No. 6 slot. Instead, Root was the chosen one. It was a brave decision: a buttoned-up England side had exposed a bit of chest hair. Root walked to the crease looking like the Milkybar Kid but played like Clint Eastwood. His 73 was cool and unflinching, taking England from a wobbly 119 for 4 to a series-deciding 302 for 8. He batted 229 balls. In the very centre of India, 4700 miles from home, the boy had become a man.

Why was he picked? "He was very vocal in team meetings," says Graham Gooch, England's former batting coach. "He spoke up for himself as a young lad. Self-confidence is an important part of a sportsman's make-up. He's not shouting from the rooftops but in everything he did on the India tour he impressed everyone and took his chance on merit."

They already knew all of this at Yorkshire. Jason Gillespie, the county coach, says his first impressions of Root were of someone itching to improve. "He is always asking us to be open and honest with him," Gillespie told me last year. "Players often say they want that, but they'll only listen to the stuff they want to hear. Joe's not like that. It's a mark of someone who is looking to get the very, very best out of himself."

Gooch lauds Root's ability to communicate with his peers. Gillespie says: "Joe listens and he's honest, plus he has a great knowledge of the game. There's no doubt Joe can be a leader."

While England's two previous chosen ones, Ian Bell and Alastair Cook, didn't experience failure until they reached international level, Root was exposed early in his development at Yorkshire.

Faced by a boy in an oversized helmet, grumpy bowlers switched to abuse. Root's trait of smiling back at bowlers was fostered in this environment

At 19, Root found himself in a cycle of falling over and getting trapped in front. It went on for a couple of months for Yorkshire 2nds and he began to think his cricket journey was up. Then Sharp, the batting coach at Yorkshire whom Root cites as instrumental in his development, worked out that a growth spurt had put his balance out of kilter; those little legs weren't so little anymore.

A quick realignment, a quick fix. Runs flowed once more.

That experience, the feeling of not being able to do what came so naturally, was stored away and came in handy as England were pillaged by Mitchell Johnson's band of marauders in Australia. Like a broken satnav, Root was moved around the order without ever knowing where he was going to end up. Finally, as a ruthless Australia exploited his back-foot game by teasing him uneasily onto the front foot, he was dropped for the last Test. The golden boy had lost his glow.

Behind the scenes, Root still bounced, still smiled. He was hugely pleased for his Yorkshire team-mate - and former flatmate - Gary Ballance, who replaced him in Sydney. A failing Root, it seemed, was no different to a winning Root. His temperament is a Roman road. The harrowing experience - in sporting terms - played out in front of stadiums packed with hungry Aussies revelling in revenge would have broken many 23-year-olds. Root used the experience to improve himself.

Since that series he has scored his maiden ODI hundred while batting with a broken thumb (which afforded him saintly status in Yorkshire) and hit three Test centuries. He became the fourth-youngest Englishman - after Len Hutton, David Gower and Bill Edrich - to score a double-hundred when he made 200 not out against Sri Lanka at Lord's. It was an innings of stealth: his pulling decisive, his driving crisp, his defence obdurate. He made it look simple, as if scoring double-centuries was part of his everyday routine - brush teeth, shower, have breakfast, score double-hundred. He still has problems. When forced forward early on in his innings, prodding his front foot out like a cat suspiciously pawing at water, he invites trouble against fast bowlers who carry a short-ball threat. For too long he batted like he thought a Test batsman should, as if constrained by Victorian belts and braces. Geoffrey Boycott might have approved, but it was limiting Root. He is starting to play in Tests as he does in limited-overs: busy, innovative and with a sense of freedom. The braces are off. Ramp shots - a rare breed in the Yorkshire leagues - are now part of his armoury. He plays them well, crouched with his neck reeled in, like a turtle retracting into its shell.

Think like a man: leadership comes naturally to Root, who, Yorkshire's Kevin Sharp says, listened and asked the right questions early © Getty Images

This style of batting doesn't come naturally to Root; it comes from hours of crafting the ramp, the switch hit, the step down the pitch to fast bowlers. Hours and hours of what he has done since he was a kid: hitting hundreds, thousands of cricket balls. It is done to ensure, Root says, that he stays one step ahead of the bowlers; to control his own destiny. Wherever that may take him.

The English love few things more than grooming a captain, and in the minds of many that is already Root's destiny. It's not only Gooch who describes Root as a good communicator. Former coaches agree, and so do those who have played with him. This might be surprising if you've seen Root's Cook-style umming, mumbling and stumbling his way through interviews.

So which is it? Root the great communicator or Root the monosyllabist? Truth is, he is both.

Root was a timid tangle of anxieties when we first spoke for an interview during England's tour of New Zealand in early 2013. Very politely he said he was more nervous than when batting. It showed. There were glints of his personality: admitting to a bit of skulduggery to skive off school in order to watch the last day of the 2005 Ashes - "I was sat on the sofa watching every minute of it, pretending to curl up in pain to make sure people thought I was ill." He also joked about being annoyed at missing out, when 11, on his school's Sports Personality of the Year award to Olympic-hero-in-waiting Jessica Ennis, who was a few years above him. Really, though, these morsels were mere cigarette butts to a desperate smoker.

Nine months later, with the Ashes won 3-0 and a fake beard punched by David Warner, we met again. This time Root carried himself with poise. A twinkle had settled in his eye. Although he hates photo shoots - "the most embarrassing thing in the world" - he was happy to be prodded and moulded into positions. He was chatty, interested, and showed off a nice line in James Anderson-esque deadpan. He spoke intelligently about media intrusion and excitedly about darts, batting technique and Sheffield United FC.

This, though, was all off the record. As soon as the dictaphone's red light blinked on, Root clammed up. The media training's form of predictive text, which had spread insidiously through the England team during Andy Flower's tenure as coach, robotically kicked in. Two gatekeepers were on hand to ensure that, heaven forbid, he didn't let slip anything interesting. Where once there was personality now there was vacuum.

The echoes of Cook were strong but, away from the tape recorder, away from the gatekeepers, where he was just Joe Root rather than England's Joe Root, he is a very different man. While both have drawn comparisons from Gooch for a shared drive, Cook is shy, almost suspicious; a follower most at ease in the bosom of those close to him. Root is an easy presence; a doer and a leader of the pack.

This comes as no surprise to Root's friends and family, who spoke after his Test debut of someone who wasn't as quiet as he might first appear. Gillespie snorted with laughter when it was suggested Root may be a bit faint-hearted for Test cricket. A self-confessed goody two-shoes at school, Root has unleashed the inner rascal - and the British public adores a scamp. The England fans have embraced him, bellowing out the affectionate "Roooooot" after every boundary or milestone.

Communicator or monosyllabist? Root is both © Getty Images

Slowly but surely the real Root has emerged, the lingering pace of cricket revealing layers of character like no other sport. First there was the incident with Warner in a Birmingham bar last summer, then suggestions that the Australians were growing tired of Root's chat on the field. This summer, with England looking to bat out for a draw against Sri Lanka on the final day at Headingley, Root said something as the umpires changed a misshapen ball with the match drifting after lunch. We don't know what it was he said, but Angelo Mathews, normally passive, transformed into the Incredible Hulk. Billy Bowden, as is his wont, stepped in to separate them. A dormant Sri Lankan team erupted in support of their captain, sending brimstone at Root before and after every ball until he perished, perhaps a victim of his own chat.

From the slips, from gully or square leg, Root is an irritant, a seagull squawking as you're attempting to sleep, a joker shouting out random numbers as you're trying to count. He bounces like a wallaby, clapping, smiling, encouraging his team-mates.

Perhaps his role as England's chief pest hints at immaturity. Those who know him say it reveals a side of him that is hardwired to win. If winding up opponents gives his team a better chance of winning, then a nuisance he shall be. Arjuna Ranatunga would surely applaud.

How will Joe Root's story finish? At a press conference in a badly lit room, a blur of tears, cracked voices, camera flashes, sponsored baseball caps, defeat and resignation? This scenario, however, summons another English proclivity: pessimism, the very antithesis of what Root brings to the England side.

Root hasn't even experienced this from the sidelines, has only seen the television pictures of captains Andrew Strauss, Vaughan and Nasser Hussain as they each departed. Putting Root, still barely able to shave, into this world seems incongruous; a cub in a bear pit. A career can slide down unexpected tracks. But wherever the path takes Root, the two-day-old with the bat in his hand, the boy walking out in Nagpur looking like a mascot, his is likely to be a celebrated story. He is, let us not forget, the chosen one.

Daniel Brigham is features editor of the Cricketer

© ESPN Sports Media Ltd.

 

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