Joe Root went past Alastair Cook to become England’s leading run-getter in Test cricket on Wednesday, October 09. The superstar batter went past the major landmark when he got to 71 on Day 3 of the first Test between England and Pakistan at the Multan Cricket Ground. Root got there in style, playing a perfectly executed on-drive as England continued to dominate with the bat on a batter-friendly surface.
As soon as Root went past the landmark, the members in the England dressing room in Multan were up on their feet, lauding the effort. Root took a moment to acknowledge the adulation and raised his bat towards the change room.
Former England captain Alastair Cook had finished his Test career with 12,472 runs in 161 matches. Root went past the mark in his 147th Test, continuing to break records at will. Root, who made his Test debut in 2012, has averaged less than 40 in only one calendar year, exhibiting incredible consistency in the traditional format.
Root also broke into the top five in the list of all-time leading run-getters in Test cricket. Being the only active Test cricketer with more than 10,000 runs, Root is tipped to challenge the Himalayan record of 15,921 runs held by legendary Sachin Tendulkar.
Root, 33, has shown no signs of slowing down. In three of the last four calendar years, Root has scored at least 1000 runs. Despite going through a dip in captaincy before he stepped down, Root’s hunger for runs never went down. With 17 hundreds in the last four years, Root has arguably been the finest Test batter in the modern era, leaving behind the other members of the Big Four — Virat Kohli, Steve Smith and Kane Williamson — in the recent past.
