Joe Root      

That Joe Root will one day captain England has been taken as read since he hit the grand old age of 23 - but for the moment it is his batting potential which so excites England. It is a rare England batsman who achieves maturity so quickly, but Root has looked consumed by the delights of batting from the moment he first took guard. Fast bowlers worldwide might begin to find his scampish grin a little wearing.

Proof of Root's ability came in the way he responded to a troubled tour of Australia in 2013/14 as England went down 5-0 in the Tests and he became increasingly hesitant as his back-foot game was skilfully exposed. Back in England, he followed up a two-tone double hundred against Sri Lanka at Lord's - a disciplined innings with a freewheeling finale - with two more big hundreds against India. All three had the not out asterisk. That seemed to say a lot about him.

Root's Test debut for England in Nagpur in 2012 exemplified the qualities which had attracted coaches from an early age. He began with England's sixth-longest debut innings in terms of balls faced, 73 from 229 balls as he displayed the patience and discrimination demanded both by the situation of the game and a desperately slow surface.

His rise continued with a maiden Test hundred in his home ground, Headingley, against New Zealand in 2013 followed by a maiden Ashes century at Lord's having been promoted to open at the beginning of the series. He risked the wrath of Yorkshire followers by suggesting that a Test hundred at Lord's was as good as it gets.

Root looked set to occupy England's Test opening role for many years to come. But that stability did not remain for Root as England were whitewashed in Australia in 2012-13. He started at No 6, in recognition of the fact that Australia were exposing technical frailties in his game, but was promoted to No 3 when Jonathan Trott left the tour with a stress-related illness and as much as he suggested he was happy to bat anywhere, it did not aid his cause. He found the going tough and his unease extended into his one-day game where he struggled to score at an acceptable tempo.

Root had never been a strikingly heavy scorer as he worked through the ranks, nor was he particularly athletic, but his systematic approach to batting was that of a young batsman who would not sell his wicket easily and gave England hope that he would be able to attune his game to the highest level.

Root, a slender batsman who relies more on precision than weight of stroke, has already drawn comparisons with two of Yorkshire's finest batsmen. His patience and stubbornness at the crease had Geoffrey Boycott gushing that he reminded him of himself. Others see some of Michael Vaughan in Root's front-foot drive - the pair also both attended Sheffield Collegiate.

Root made his mark with the England Under-19 squad in Bangladesh, shortly before the youth World Cup in New Zealand in 2010. He signed a three-year contract with Yorkshire that year. He narrowly missed out on scoring 1000 runs in his first full season with the first XI, though his performances earned him a shot with England Lions.

2011 was a breakthrough season for Root, as he made 1,013 runs at 36.17 but would have been disappointed not to turn the six times he passed fifty into more than one century. It was a bright point in a poor campaign for Yorkshire who were relegated from Division One of the County Championship. Root again toured with England Lions that winter and made an unbeaten century in Sri Lanka to boost his return after seven previous lean innings on the tour that also took in List A matches in Bangladesh.

Back in England, Root, like most batsman, struggled during a rainy 2012 summer but perfectly demonstrated his talent with an unbeaten 222 against Hampshire at West End. He was named Cricket Writer's Club Young Player of the Year. The following summer he returned to the county game as an England player now walking the walk: big hundreds against Durham at Chester-le-Street and Derbyshire at Headingley confirming that here was a player of stature.

He even had the fortune to skipper Yorkshire to the Championship title at Trent Bridge in 2014 when Andrew Gale was suspended, less than a fortnight after he became the first Yorkshire batsman to hit an ODI hundred at Headingley, with India the victims.

ESPNcricinfo staff