Joe Root reacts to going past Sachin Tendulkar’s most Test runs: ‘I just want to play, and try, and do my bit for the team’ | Cricket News

With two hundreds in either of the innings against Sri Lanka in the second Test at Lords, Joe Root gets closer to Sachin Tendulkar for the most runs in the hory of Test match cricket. The English batter is 3544 runs behind Tendulkar. When asked about the possibility of crossing Tendulkar, Root would emphasise importance of scoring runs for teams win than personal milestones.
“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 amazing when you score 100, you’d be lying if you said it wasn’t, a big part of why you started playing the game and what you love about it,” said Root speaking on video released England Cricket.
“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.
“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.
Root with his twin tons against Sri Lanka took his tally to 34 tons surpassing Alastair Cook (33 tons) for the highest number of centuries as an England player.
2nd youngest and 2nd slowest
Root is the second youngest batter behind compatriot Alastair Cook to reach 12,000 Test runs, completing the feat aged 33 years and 210 days. Former India captain Rahul Dravid was the oldest batter to cross the mark at 37 years 339 days. Root also eclipsed West Indies batting legend Brian Lara’s tally of 11,953 runs during his knock.