Joe Root breaks England record with 34th Test century

Joe Root set an England record of 34 Test centuries when, for the second time in the match, he reached three figures in the second Test against Sri Lanka at Lord’s.

Root, who made 143 in the first innings to move level with the previous England record of 33 hundreds held by the retired Alastair Cook, went to a century on Saturday’s third day when he cut Lahiru Kumara for the 10th four off 111 balls faced.

It meant he surpassed his fellow former England captain’s mark in what was Root’s 145th Test compared to Cook’s career tally of 161 matches.

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.

In the process, Root 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 Rootis the only batsman in this group who is still an active Test cricketer.

Most Test hundreds (number of hundreds, matches, player, team (s), span):

51 200 Sachin Tendulkar IND 1989-2013

45 166 Jacques Kallis RSA 1995-2013

41 168 Ricky Ponting AUS 1995-2012

38 134 Kumar Sangakkara SRI 2000-2015

36 164 Rahul Dravid IND/ICC 1996-2012

34 118 Younis Khan PAK 2000-2017

34 125 Sunil Gavaskar IND 1971-1987

34 131 Brian Lara WIS/ICC 1990-2006

34 149 Mahela Jayawardene SRI 1997-2014

34 145 Joe Root ENG 2012 -

33 161 Alastair Cook ENG 2006-2018