It was the 181st delivery that Joe Root tucked around the corner. But the relief carried the weight of the 2,213 leading up to that ball from Scott Boland, more than 12 years after playing - and missing - his first on an Ashes tour, at this very ground.
When he walked onto The Gabba as a 22-year-old in 2013, for his first taste of pure anti-English Australiana, no thought would have been given to the present day. Root was the anointed one; a Yorkie talent far greater than what existed, and what may come. At no point in his prophecy was struggle, doubt or blight on a legacy to come littered with enough of plenty else to lift him to be among the greats.
He would not have known then what he does now, and nor would anyone have dared tell him if they could forsee it. That for the next decade-and-some, Australia would have nothing for him. No glory, no joy and still, at the time of writing, not a single Test win to savour. And up until 8:40pm local time on day one of the second Test of the 2025-26 Ashes, not one century.
The shrug accompanying the celebration could not have been more ironic. "What were you worried about?" he asked a nation, and a sport. Well you, Joe, and this thing around your neck, weighing you down as you protested otherwise. Drawing you into conversations that brought out a gnarl in that still boy-ish grin you try to hide behind that facial hair. A box to tick that had you training for an entire day at Lilac Hills in the build up to the series, intense enough to require breaks for lunch and tea so net bowlers could keep up with your relentless pursuit of perfection in an imperfect world.
No individual English milestone has carried more weight on one man and, by proxy, everyone around him. An entire discourse has now shifted with a fourth century this year, and 10th since the start of 2024. Maybe the next thing to hit him with was that this century came against an Australia without Pat Cummins, Josh Hazlewood and, for their own peculiar reasons, Nathan Lyon. Good luck to them.
Batting is a selfish pursuit that benefits the team. And yet Root's 40th Test century nourished the people behind the players, the ones allowed to show the emotion, as they did when his 11th boundary skipped over the sponge at fine third. "GO BALL!" shouted Ben Stokes as he sped away off the turf, before holding back the tears.
Stokes has felt Root's travails in Australia too keenly, perhaps. They were both maiden Ashes tourists for the disastrous '13-14 series, before Stokes watched on from afar as Root copped it hard in '17-18. An early return from a mental health break in '21-22 was made to not leave his mate in the lurch again. Desperate to help out, the pair clashed under the strain of Covid-19 and a second successive 4-0 defeat. Of all the things Stokes has overseen as captain, perhaps this day, when Test cricket's second-highest run scorer, well, scored some more runs, might be the one to fill him with the most pride.
It might even be the perfect microcosm of Root's life in Australia. They gunned for him as a kid and still gun for him now knowing this is the last time they will get to do so on their own patch. They had him for 0 and 8 in Perth. They could have had him on 2 in Brisbane, at the end of the third over, when Steve Smith could only parry a tough chance off Mitchell Starc. They still do not have him on 135, nor England who closed on 325 for 9.
Therein lies another familiar thread through Root's career; often the man with solutions in a sea of confusion. For so long, the adult in the room, and especially more so now in a team full of bright talents with dim moments. At times throughout his career - and in moments here - those around him do not seem attuned to the gravity with which he is operating. Like Michael Caine in the most popular interpretation of Charles Dickens' A Christmas Carol - he can often seem a serious man among carefree muppets.
There were familiar passages of Root getting through periods that felled others, beginning with his arrival. A throwback to bad old days - many of them during Root's time as captain - when he would walk out to the middle far earlier than he'd have liked. This, to face the 16th delivery of the match at 5 for 2, was his third-earliest entry into an innings in Australia. The other two times - at the WACA (second ball) and Adelaide (10th) - came in the '13-14 series as a No.3, and both in the first innings.
That he survived Starc's devastating early burst that felled Ben Duckett and Ollie Pope owed as much to luck as an ingrained understanding that even the best players have to simply hold on. The edge and plays-and-misses broadcast the anxiety. Movements were awkward, the usually crisp shapes of body and bat notably frayed, as if he had two left feet and the two right ones for hands.
For all the understandable maligning of Zak Crawley, his dominance in the initial 117-stand that lifted England off the floor - the opener with 71 of them - allowed Root to operate in his slipstream. By the time Crawley had fallen victim to the short-ball ploy, Root, on 41, was ticking; walking at Boland to change his length into driveable treats. A gloved pull off Brendan Doggett beyond Alex Carey was soon replaced by swiveled ones with rolled wrists.
The knuckling down during the period when the artificial lights clicked into gear as the sun set was equally impressive, if ultimately unnerving alongside Harry Brook's chaotic energy. Carey stood up to squeeze Root with narrow fields and a metronomic Michael Neser sitting in on a wicket-to-wicket line.
Brook's comical drive at Starc - the first ball he had faced from the only bowler carrying any real threat - was followed by Root keeping schtum, scoring 5 off 18 deliveries from the left-hander amid a 59-ball boundary-less sequence that was broken by yet another crisp drive down the ground off Boland. Now that, kids, is how you absorb pressure and then put it back on the bowlers.
Arguably Root's most impressive response was to not respond at all to the mix-up that ran out Stokes. The skipper called quickly without hesitation, but also not realising Josh Inglis had the legs and hands to sprint and swoop. Had Root trusted his captain, he'd have been the one seen off for 77 and England's innings would have collapsed terminally.
It was in the midst of the 5 for 54 cascade that Root notched his sought-after landmark. And it was hard not to surmise from his venture into outlandish shot-making with Jofra Archer through to stumps - nailing his second reverse-scoop off Boland (having botched the first off Starc) for his first six in Australia - that this was a man liberated. Amid the glee as Smith tried to kill the day off by taking the pink ball to the corner was a 61-run stand that lifted England merrily from a distinctly sub-par 264 for 9.
All the talk leading into the series was that it was not about him, but no England success on this tour would be on the agenda without him. And so it has played out.
While Matthew Hayden's naked walk across the MCG has been kiboshed - much to his own relief - England's Ashes are still alive. And Joe Root's legacy has not been saved but reinforced. The greatest England batter to ever do it finally got it done.