I just want to play: Joe Root on breaking Sachin Tendulkar’s Test record
England batter Joe Root is on a role, scoring runs freely in Test cricket for England and inching closer to Sachin Tendulkars all time Test record.
Joe Root, on Saturday notched up his 34th century in the format in the ongoing 2nd Test against Sri Lanka at the Lord’s in London. Root, who stands the closest to Sachin’s iconic Test feat among active cricketers, later broke his silence on having one eye on the milestone.
Following his 206-ball 143 in the opening innings against Sri Lanka in the match, Root scored 103 off 121 in the second innings to help England, who are already 1-0 up in the three-match series, set an improbable target of 483 runs.
The 34th hundred also took Root’s career run tally to 12377 runs, leaving him only 96 runs away from not only making it to the elusive top five in the all-time list, but also surpassing Cook for the most-ever runs by an England batter in Test history.
However, the one that has been in discussion amid Root’s century spree in Test cricket has been the possibility of him breaking Sachin’s all-time career record of 15921 runs, which remains the most-ever by a batter in the history of the format. And with Root standing only 3544 runs away from the tally, it only seems a matter of time now.
However, when asked in a video shared by England Cricket on the possibility, he rather stressed on scoring runs to win matches for his team than on 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 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,” said Root.
“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.
