Joe Root slammed his 28th Test ton as he raced to a 173-ball 142 against India in the rescheduled fifth Test at Edgbaston, Birmingham. The hosts won by seven wickets and drew the five-match series, the first leg of which was played in India, 2-2.
Root counter-attacked the Indian bowlers to bring up his hundred in 136 balls. He smashed 19 boundaries and one maximum during his stay at the crease. The hosts collapsed from 107 for no loss to 109/3 before the former England captain joined hands with Jonny Bairstow (114 off 145) to stitch a 269-run partnership and take their side home.
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Root now has the most Test centuries among active cricketers. In November 2019, former Indian skipper Virat Kohli had 27 Test hundreds and Joe Root had 16. In July 2022, the former has not added any to his tally while Root added 12. The 31-year-old has also left behind Steve Smith (27) and Kane Williamson (24).
Key stats:
Joe Root now has the most centuries against India in Test: 9
He overtook the Alastair Cook’s record last year and now has overtaken egends Ricky Ponting, Vivian Richards, Steven Smith and Garry Sobers.
The former English captain also has 10 half-centuries against India in the format.
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Joe Root has already scored five centuries in 2022. He has slammed 12 hundreds since 2021. The tally also includes two double-hundreds.
Most Test hundreds in Fab 4:
Root – 28* (121 matches)
Smith – 27 (86 matches)
Kohli – 27 (102 matches)
Williamson – 24 (88 matches)
Only earlier this year, Joe Root became the first active cricketer to score 10,000 Test runs. He is the second from England to get past the mark after Alastair Cook (12,474).
Sachin Tendulkar, Ricky Ponting, Jacques Kallis, Rahul Dravid, Cook, Kumar Sangakkara, Brian Lara, S Chanderpaul, Mahela Jayawardene, Allan Border, Steve Waugh, Sunil Gavaskar, and Younis Khan are the others who have scored more than 10,000 runs in the format.
