India, Jan. 5 -- Joe Root produced a classic SCG innings in the ongoing fifth Ashes Test, the kind that survives good bowling, shifting tempo, and long hours, and it lands at a time when Root's output has quietly become the modern benchmark.

The cleanest method to judge who is the current best Test batter, the cleanest method is a transparent window that captures current form with a meaningful sample: all Tests with a start date between January 1, 2024, and January 5, 2026. Here is what the numbers say.

Joe Root's edge is a combination of scale and conversion. In this span, he has scored 2,521 runs at an average of 56.02 with 11 hundreds, the most compelling volume+elite+average+match-defining innings package among the active batters. ...