Joe Root surpassed former Englishman Alastair Cook's test record

The 33-year-old English batter Joe Root has been in red-hot form since January 2023 in test matches. The right-handed English talisman has shattered multiple records in the ongoing test series against Sri Lanka. In the second test match at Lords, he scored tons in both the first and second innings of the test match. His twin hundred powered England to beat Sri Lanka comfortably by 2-0 by 190 runs in the 3-match test series. This was also the first time in a test in London after 33 years that England defeated Sri Lanka.

With that hundred as well, he surpassed the record of former Englishman Alastair Cook who hit 33 test hundreds for England in test cricket and made it to 34 hundreds. Joe Root scored 143 runs facing 206 balls in the first innings of the Lord’s test match. In the second innings, he scored 103 off 121 balls. It was also the first incident when Joe Root scored a hundred in both innings of a test match.

Bharat Ratna winner and former India batting legend Sachin Tendulkar, who scored 100 centuries in international cricket, has never scored two centuries in a Test match. The Sheffield-born stalwart batter is second among players in terms of scoring the most international centuries. He now has a total of 50 centuries in international cricket only Virat Kohli is ahead of him with 80 centuries in all three formats of the game in terms of active batters. He took 455 innings to complete his 50th International century and become the 9th batter who has 50 International hundreds.

In modern cricket, Virat Kohli, Steve Smith, Joe Root and Kane Williamson are known as Fab-4. Among these four players, The English man has raised the bar for the other three batters as well. He had 17 centuries test hundreds before January 2021. At the same time, Virat Kohli, Steve Smith and Kane Williamson have also been able to score only 17 centuries together. He is also the player who has scored the most Test centuries among the Fab-4.

When asked what is his thoughts on breaking Sachin Tendulkar’s test record. The English man said, "I'm not looking at Sachin Tendulkar's record of most runs. I just want to play and contribute to my team, hundreds are great, but no greater feeling than winning the Test matches". Even the 39-year-old Alastair Cook praised Joe Root and said "he is simply England's Greatest Ever, we are watching a genius."