Seven years ago, on this day, January 8 2018, English batsman Joe Root didn’t come out to play…
But on Monday morning he was taken to hospital suffering from severe dehydration and diarrhoea. It was assumed that this was a consequence of his being in the field for almost all of Sunday when temperatures in the middle soared as high as 57 degrees, initially trying to marshal England’s flagging attack, then defiantly batting for some pride and the draw.
The amount of carbon dioxide in the air was roughly 408ppm. As of 2025 it is 425ppm, but check here for daily measures.
The context was
Australia has always had some hot days, but they’re getting hotter. And why could that be? Why this matters is we’re beginning to see cultural events and sporting events being affected by the extremes. but we dismissed them because “here always been heat waves” or whatever.
And there are sports where it’s simply becoming too dangerous to play, or it will become too dangerous to play at certain times of day.
But in response, these concerns will be derided as woke and people will point to one off days in 1930s when it was hotter.
NB further on Marks writes “Later, it transpired that Root had a viral gastroenteritis bug and that his illness had noting to do with heat exhaustion, although the temperatures on Sunday could not helped his condition.”
What I think we can learn from this
Yeah, like we ever learn anything…
What happened next
Root is still playing and batting “quite well” shall we say?
He’s now the highest scoring English batsman and might reasonably expect to overtake at least Ricky Ponting quite soon and who knows, conceivably overtake Sachin Tendulkar to score the most runs in Tests.
Sidebar, Just Stop Oil protesters tried to interfere with the 2023 Ashes and Johnny Bairstow picked one up and removed him from the field. Stewart Lee had something good to say about this…
Also on this day
Jan 8, 1958 – “The masters of infinity… could control the world’s weather”, says LBJ
January 8, 1968 – LaMont Cole to AAAS about running outta oxygen, build-up of C02 etc
January 8, 2003 – Energy firms plan to “bury carbon emissions”…
January 8, 2013 – Australian Prime Minister connects bush fires and #climate change