England’s Joe Root opens up on surpassing Sachin Tendulkar’s all-time great Test record: ’I just want to play’

Former England Test captain Joe Root slammed his 34th century in the ongoing 2nd Test against Sri Lanka at the Lord's in London on 31 August and inched closer to legendary India batter Sachin Tendulkar's all-time Test record.

Playing in the second Test's first innings against Sri Lanka, Root scored 143 runs off 206 deliveries, followed by 103 off 121 balls in the second innings as England posted an improbable target of 483 runs for Sri Lanka to win. With the Twin Century in just a single match, Root became the England batter with the most Test centuries.

He even surpassed Sir Alastair Cook's 33 centuries, who, in fact, was at the commentary box during both knocks of Root.

Looking at the stats, compiled by Cricinfo, Root has played 144 Test matches for England since 2012, where he scored 12377 runs with an average of over 50. This leaves him 96 runs behind to surpass Cook's 12472 runs record, which is most-ever runs by an England batter in Test history.

However, questions remain if Root would be able to surpass Sachin's all-time career record of 15921 runs, which is still 3544 runs far away?

India's Sachin Tendulkar scored 15921 runs in 200 Tests at an average of 53.8, added Cricinfo. He has 51 Test centuries and 68 half centuries to his name.

Root's reply:

Speaking on if he would be able to breach Sachin's record, Root stressed on scoring runs to win matches for his team than on personal milestones.

He said, as Hindustan Times quoted him as saying to England Cricket, "I just want to play, and try, and do my bit for the team and score the runs as many as I can and see where we get to. But there’s no better feeling I mean, it’s obviously amazing when, you score 100, you’d 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 better feeling 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 will be the main focus. And hopefully more days like this will come with that mentality,” he added.