Joe Root moved into second place in the all-time list of Test run-scorers during the recent series against India and is just over 2,000 behind Sachin Tendulkar.

He had overtaken Alastair Cook to top England’s list last year. Look down it and at number 22 you find Jack Hobbs, whose 5,410 Test runs came in just 61 Tests, 97 fewer than Root, albeit at a superior average.

Who was the better player? No idea. Historical comparisons are almost impossible to make given the different circumstances and playing conditions.

The similarities they share are of being stylish right-handers who were liked and respected by colleagues, opponents and spectators. A century ago, Surrey maestro Hobbs dominated the English sporting scene in the summer of 1925.

By then he was 42 – an age nowadays which usually means a place in the commentary box – and enjoying one of the great summers of his career, already known as “The Master”.

Hobbs had made his first-class debut in 1905 but lost four seasons to the First World War and much of another to illness. He regarded himself as a better player before the conflict but was much more prolific after it – so much so that half of his 199 first-class centuries, a record which will never be broken, came after the age of 40.

The summer of 1925 had a say in that. Just back from England’s long tour of Australia, he scored more than 3,000 first-class runs, including 16 centuries.

Two of them, in the middle of August, were particularly celebrated. Hobbs and the Surrey side whose batting he led for three decades, arrived at Taunton to play Somerset needing a 125th first-class century of his career to equal the record of WG Grace, cricket’s first superstar. After a blazing start to the summer, he had lost form and scored just 252 runs in his next ten innings.

The expectation, grounds being packed as a circus of press and spectators desperate to witness history followed him round, combined with bad weather to slow him down.

But in front of another heaving crowd, Hobbs saw his colleagues dismiss Somerset for 167 and finished the day – Saturday, August 15 – on 91 not out. He had to wait until the Monday morning, witnessed by a 6,000 crowd, to complete the century which equalled Grace and sent a telegram to his wife Ada reading “Got it at last.”

He wasn’t finished with Somerset either, the following day Surrey needing 183 for victory and Hobbs making an unbeaten 101 to claim the record for himself.

He would go on to score more than 61,000 first-class runs, another record which will never be beaten now that the first-class programme has been trimmed so much to fit in multitudinous white ball competitions.

And he was the first professional cricketer to be knighted, in 1953, an honour which will surely be granted to Root when he finally calls time on his career.

Hobbs did have one advantage over the Yorkshireman – he scored nine Test centuries in Australia whereas Root has yet to record one in his four tours there. Barring injury, he will have another opportunity to correct that weak spot in his record and if England are going to win back the Ashes they will probably need him to add a couple more.

By Richard Spiller