Joe Root Breaks Alastair Cook's Record To Become Leading Run Scorer For England In Tests

Star English batter Joe Root created history on Wednesday (October 9) by becoming England’s leading run scorer in Test cricket. The 33-year-old right-handed batter broke former captain Alastair Cook’s record. During his 12-year-long international career, Cook played 161 Tests for the Poms and scored 12,472 runs.

Root, who is playing his 147th Test for England in Multan these days against Pakistan, has 12,473 runs to his name now. The right-handed batter needed 71 runs in the first Test to go past Cook’s tally, and he achieved the objective in the first innings itself.

Most runs for England in Tests

• Joe Root – 12,473*
• Alastair Cook – 12,472
• Graham Gooch – 8900
• Alec Stewart – 8463
• David Gower – 8231

By breaking Cook’s record, Root has also moved to No. 5 position in the list of batters with most runs in Test cricket.

The overall record of scoring most runs in Tests is in the name of Sachin Tendulkar, who finished his career with 15,921 runs in 200 matches. Australia’s Ricky Ponting, South Africa’s Jacques Kallis, and India’s Rahul Dravid, who have 13378, 13289, and 13288 runs to their names, respectively, are in 2nd, 3rd, and 4th place.

Most runs in Tests

• Sachin Tendulkar (India) – 15,921
• Ricky Ponting (Australia) – 13,378
• Jacques Kallis (South Africa) – 13, 289
• Rahul Dravid (India) – 13,288
• Joe Root (England) – 12,473*

Earlier on Tuesday, during the second day’s play of the 1st Test, Root created history by becoming the first player to score 5000 runs in the World Test Championship. Root is the all-time leading run scorer in WTC history and also holds the record for playing most matches and scoring most 100s in the competition’s history.

The star batter, who sits at No. 1 position in the ICC Test batter’s ranking, would like to convert his good start into a big century now and help England cancel out Pakistan’s hopes of taking a big lead in the first innings.

A century in the first innings will also help Root overtake Sunil Gavaskar, Brian Lara, Mahela Jayawardene, and Younis Khan and become the sixth batter in the world to score 35 or more Test centuries.

Sachin has 51 Test centuries to his name, which is the most by any batter, and he is followed by Kallis (45), Ponting (41), Sangakkara (38) and Dravid (36).

Most 100s in Tests

• Sachin Tendulkar (India) – 51
• Jacques Kallis (South Africa) – 45
• Ricky Ponting (Australia) – 41
• Kumar Sangakkara (Sri Lanka) – 38
• Rahul Dravid (India) – 36
• Joe Root (England) – 34

The 102-run knock in the first inning will make Root the only batter in WTC history to score at least 1500 runs in all three editions of the WTC.