England's Joe Root breaks Alastair Cook's record with 34th Test century

Just a couple of days after scoring his 33rd Test century, Joe Root created history when he scored his 34th Test century on Saturday on Day three of the second Test against Sri Lanka at Lord’s.

Root overtook former captain Alastair Cook’s record of 33 Test hundreds and thus became the England batter with most Test tons. Root is playing his 145th Test match whereas Cook ended his Test career after playing 161 matches.

Root was last man out for 103 in England’s second-innings total of 251 on the third day. Sri Lanka faced a mammoth target of 483 to level this three-match series at 1-1.

Root’s seventh Test hundred at Lord’s also gave him sole possession of the record for the most Test centuries at the ‘Home of Cricket’ he had shared with the England duo of Graham Gooch and Michael Vaughan, who both managed six apiece.

Root also became the fourth batsman to have scored hundreds in both innings of a Test at Lord’s, joining the West Indies’ George Headley (1939), Gooch (1990) and Vaughan (2004).

Gooch’s combined tally of 456 runs against India at Lord’s in 1990, comprising innings of 333 and 123, remains a record for the most runs scored by a single batsman in any Test.

Root’s latest century also moved him into joint-sixth place in an all-time list of Test century-makers headed by India great Sachin Tendulkar, who scored 51 hundreds in 200 Tests from 1989-2013.

The 33-year-old Root is the only batsman in this group who is still an active Test cricketer.

With AFP inputs