Former England captain Joe Root has climbed one ladder up the all-time century charts by scoring his 33rd and equaling another former England skipper Sir Alastair Cook, on day one of the second match of the England-Sri Lanka Test series, being played at Lord’s.
While both Root and Cook now share the joint top spot for England with 33 Test hundreds, there’s another record that Root is not far from, and interestingly, this record too currently sits with Cook, the dashing former opener.
Cook has scored the most Test runs by an England player – 12,472 runs from the 161 matches he played from 2006 to 2018.
Root, who made his Test debut in the year 2012, currently has 12,274 runs from 145 matches at an average of 50.71 with 33 centuries and 64 half-centuries (another record) and 254 being his highest score in a Test inning.
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On the all-time tally of centuries for England, Kevin Pietersen (2005-2014) comes next with 23 hundreds from 104 Tests with a career average of 47.28, followed by Ian Bell, Geoff Boycott, MC Cowdrey, and WR Hammond with 22 centuries each.
Root is currently the leading run-scorer among all active batsmen and the seventh-highest run-scorer of all time in Test cricket and is the second-highest run-scorer for England after Sir Alastair Cook.
Root is considered to be one of the greatest batsmen of his era and one of the greatest batsmen England has ever produced. He’s long been considered one of the ‘Fab Four’ of international top batters with India’s Viral Kohli, Australia’s Steve Smith and New Zealand’s Kane Williamson.
A right-handed batsman, Root originally played as an opener but has played the majority of his cricket for England in the middle order.
Joe Root’s photo courtesy Wikipedia
