The morning of Thursday, October 9, in fact, turned out to be a historic one for England batter Joe Root. This was because the 33-year-old entered the WTC 5,000 runs club, becoming a milestone that no other batter had ever achieved before, or will probably achieve in the near future. Root brought up his 35th Test century, a figure that took him past India legend Sunil Gavaskar, Pakistan stalwart Younis Khan, Sri Lanka’s Mahela Jayawardene and West Indian icon Brian Lara
Root’s 35th century in Test cricket has propelled him to the outright sixth position in the list of cricketers with the highest number of centuries in Test match cricket. The list includes Sachin Tendulkar, Jacques Kallis, Ricky Ponting, Kumar Sangakkara as well as Rahul Dravid. Root achieved the feat in his 147th Test match in which he has scored more than 12000 runs of which 7776 in Tests.
Root achieved his hundred against the backdrop of an imposing total of 556 runs declared by Pakistan as the first innings and his team putting up strong batting performances along with him to cover the target posed by Pakistan. Root completed his century in 167 deliveries as he maintained his good form in the year 2024.
Root’s innings also took him past 1,000 Test runs in the year 2024, thus he became the first batter to achieve this landmark in the year, making it even more significant.
This was supported immensely by rest of the team during the innings of Root’s 150. Harry Brook scored a ton in just 118 balls as English looked well placed to take a first innings lead after the bowler had returned the best of 556 towards Pakistan.
At the top of the order, Zak Crawley scored a brisk 78 to lay the platform, whereas, regular opener Ben Duckett, comes at No. 4, struck a quickfire 84 off 75 balls.
What aided England’s phenomenal run rate was that there was no bowler of Pakistan whose economy rate was below the five runs per over mark. Only Shaheen Afridi, Naseem Shah and Aamer Jamal took one wicket each.
