“Sometimes when you’ve done something well, you didn’t –
Joe’s brother did it,” replies Billy Root when asked about the downside of being the younger brother of the England Test captain. “But that’s not stopping me.”
This punchy follow-up to what is only a minor quibble for the Nottinghamshire batsman sums up his outlook on cricket and life, having long been used to the comparisons with his more famous older sibling as he looks to carve out a career of substance in the sport.
He believes the positives far outweigh the negatives. “Joe being so successful makes it easier, because if I ever need any help he’s quite a handy person to call upon, isn’t he? It’s unbelievable how well he’s done. What is he, No. 3 in the world at the moment? And he’s been No. 1. It’s pretty cool.”
As cool as it is, the 24-year-old reached a significant landmark last Friday – at the same time the elder Root was helping England make light work of Ireland in Bristol – when Root Jr scored his first hundred for his county in the Royal London Cup. That set up a tense 10-run victory over the defending champions, Warwickshire, at Edgbaston.
The younger Root, whose side take on Durham in the 50-over competition at home on Thursday, says it took a little while for the magnitude of this particular staging post to sink in.
He had not even realised he was close to three figures during an impish 107 not out from 93 balls that turned his side’s 92 for four in the 21st over into a match-winning 303 for six. “It just snuck up on me at the end,” says Root, who struck two sixes and 10 fours, including one audacious reverse hook shot off the bowling of Keith Barker.
“At the time it was more about, ‘How many can we get?’ When I was in the car on the way back I thought about it all and realised that it was a big moment.”
The road for Root has certainly been a long and winding one. He started his career in the Yorkshire academy, only to be released in 2013, and has racked up the mileage playing for MCC Young Cricketers, Suffolk and the Second XIs of Surrey, Worcestershire and Leicestershire before finally getting his chance at Trent Bridge.
While yet to crack the Championship side – Root remains on a summer contract for now, having put a degree in sports business management at Leeds Met on hold – there is talk of a full-time deal if the numbers continue to stack up. Understandably, there have been moments of doubt along the way.
“Once, we were playing a second team game at Worcester when it was raining and I must have had four noughts in the space of five weeks,” he says. “I thought: ‘This is just not working.’
“Then I went out against Derbyshire and got dropped at third slip before I’d scored and went on to make a double hundred. When I got dropped it was like ‘here we go again’ but by the end I thought: ‘OK, I can do it.’ Little moments like that can be significant.”
The story of the Root brothers’ days growing up playing in the nets at Sheffield Collegiate while their father, Matt, was turning out for the first team are well documented. While there have been encounters on the field in the past – “he once got me and my dad out in the same game in the Yorkshire league” – the pair faced each other in senior professional cricket for the first time a fortnight ago when Nottinghamshire hosted Yorkshire in the Royal London Cup.
It was the elder of the two that earned the bragging rights that day, stroking an unbeaten 75 and hitting the winning runs off his younger brother’s bowling with an almighty six over long on boundary.  
“It was a good shot, wasn’t it? I was winding him up, telling Stuart Broad to come in a bit closer because he can’t hit it that far. And then he smacked it. “We talked about the game in the car on the way home – I made him drive because he’s got a nicer car – and he told me a few things he saw when I was batting and some ideas to try out in the nets. It was very useful and it seemed to work against Warwickshire. “We differ in quite a few ways. He’s very strong off the back foot and I’m more of a front-foot player. He’s got a very good temperament and I quite like to whack it. It’s fair to say I could be a bit impetuous. I’m different to Joe in that way.”
Is the dream one day to join his brother in the England ranks? “I don’t know,” he says. “For now it’s more focusing on getting Notts to Lord’s for this final.”