England’s in-form batter Joe Root scored twin centuries in the ongoing second Test at Lord’s against Sri Lanka. Root went past former England captain Alastair Cook’s tally of Test centuries. Considering his current form, Root has been tipped to break Sachin Tendulkar’s record for most runs in Test cricket history. The 33-year-old still needs 3,545 runs to go past Tendulkar. But Root is not thinking too far ahead and wants to score as many runs he can.
“I just want to play and try and, do my bid for the team and score the runs that, you know as many as I can and see where we get to,” Root told ECB after Day 3’s play.
While wickets fell on the other end, Root batted with the tail and scored 103 runs at a strike rate of 85.12 including 10 fours. England posted 251 on the board and set a target of 483 for Dhananjaya de Silva-led side. Root is looking forward to winning another Test match.
“But there's no better feeling, I mean, it's obviously amazing when you score 100. You' be lying if you said it wasn't, a big part of why you start playing the game and what you love about it. But there's no feeling better than winning a Test match. So the more it can affect games and the more you can add to the team the greater it is. So that'll be the main focus and hopefully more days like this will come with that mentality,” he said.
Cook’s conversation with Root on breaking his record
As Root went past Cook with his 34th Test century, he revealed the conversation between them. He said that Cook has been gracious after he broke his record for most Test centuries as an England batter.
“No, he's taking it well. Cooky's given me so much as we spoke about the other day. He's been very gracious and supportive throughout and he's a good pal of mine. I'm sure I'll be able to rib him a bit later on about it,” he said.
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