‘The greatest we’ve ever produced’ – Steve Harmison was full of praise for Joe Root as he continued his incredible run of form with another century against New Zealand

England has produced some world class batsmen over the years from Sir Alastair Cook to Graham Gooch and Kevin Pietersen, but according to Steve Harmison, Joe Root tops the lot.

Root has been in incredible form of late, scoring four centuries in his last five Test matches dating back to England's series against the West Indies in March.

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"Well I'm sick of talking about Joe Root," joked former England fast bowler Steve Harmison on talkSPORT. "He's unbelievable.

"You can't talk any higher, he's the greatest we've ever produced and he showed again how good and how valuable and how lucky we are to have Joe Root."

In the first Test with New Zealand, Root led the way to victory by scoring 115 runs in the second innings, as England pulled off the third highest run chase to ever take place at Lord's.

That century also took Root past 10,000 test runs and he followed up with a 27th test century in the second meeting with New Zealand that is currently ongoing and finely poised.

Root is now the second highest test run scorer in England cricket history, behind only Cook, and he is 12th of all time, having overtaken Younis Khan and Sunil Gavaskar and he is hot on the heels of Steve Waugh.

It seems relinquishing the captaincy and handing over the reins to Ben Stokes has worked wonders for Root, taking a weight off his shoulders and he looks more confident than ever at the crease.

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Another in-form batsman in the England line-up is the new number three, Ollie Pope, for whom Harmison also had nothing but admiration.

"It was a good day yesterday for England," Harmison added, "and I think everybody was over the moon for Ollie Pope.

"He's had his struggles in the recent past, the last 18-24 months, but there's no doubt the boys talented and he showed that yesterday."

Pope played an excellent supporting role for Root in the first innings of England's second test with New Zealand, calming the ship after losing Zak Crawley early on and going on to score 145 runs to help chase down the Kiwi's huge total of 553.