The nearest any modern batsman comes to a wet uncovered pitch, and a ball that is doing all sorts, is on a turner in Asia. Root, using the depth of his crease, has not simply scored more Test runs in Asia than any other England batsman, as you would expect (Sir Alastair Cook comes second), but three double centuries.

From the moment he bounced out – exuberantly keen – to make his Test debut in Nagpur and saved England’s day, Root’s footwork has been classical: in other words, the point where he has made contact with the spinning ball has either been right forward or right back. His cricketing nous was evident again here when, having seen the ball delivered from the James Anderson End keeping low, he took up a stance at least one foot in front of his popping crease.

No comparison here with Hobbs, because he never played a Test in Asia. The comparison with Hobbs in Australia, however, is all in Hobbs’s favour.

Amazing but, most regrettably, true: no England batsman has come close to beating Hobbs’s record either of nine Test centuries in Australia or of 12 Ashes centuries in all. It is one reason, in a nutshell, why England have been winning a series in Australia roughly once in a generation since Hobbs’s time.

Root has made four hundreds against Australia in England, but none in Australia and has averaged 35 there until now. That is not sufficient to take him past Hobbs in our estimation, especially as Root has had far friendlier surfaces to bat on than Hobbs, who scored one of those 12 Ashes hundreds on a wet pitch in Melbourne in 1928-9.

Of all the similarities though, the most endearing has still to come. It lies in their personalities. Hobbs was, and Root is, the most modest of men, the self-effacing Englishman at his best. Hobbs was the first professional cricketer to be knighted; Root should be on the same footing soon.