England’s star batsman Joe Root Has achieved another big milestone in Test cricket. On the second day of the first Test being played against Pakistan at Headingley, Root completed his 68th Test Fifty and with this he equaled the record of great Indian batsman Sachin Tendulkar. In terms of scoring the most number of half-centuries in Test cricket, now both Root and Sachin have 68-68 fifties in their names.
Root played an inning of 66 runs in 112 balls against Pakistan. His innings included 10 fours. Although he could not convert his innings into a century, but after crossing the 50-run mark, he made a special record in the history of Test cricket. Now Root will have a chance to surpass Sachin in the next innings and become the batsman who has scored the most half-centuries in Tests.
In the list of batsmen who have scored most fifties in Test cricket, Root and Sachin are jointly at first place with 68-68 half-centuries. Shivnarine Chanderpaul of West Indies is at third place with 66 fifty. Former Australia captain Allan Border and India’s Rahul Dravid have 63-63 half-centuries, while Ricky Ponting is in sixth place with 62 fifties.
This day was special for Root
This achievement was also special for Joe Root because he is once again captaining the England Test team after Ben Stokes’s retirement from Test captaincy. Even as a captain, Root has proved his consistency. As a Test captain, he now has a record of scoring 50 or more runs 42 times. South Africa’s Graeme Smith leads this list with 61 50+ scores. Ricky Ponting is behind him with 54, Allan Border 51 and Pakistan’s Misbah-ul-Haq with 43 50+ scores.
Root and Cox took over England’s innings
England started the day with a score of 112/2. At that time the team was 59 runs behind Pakistan’s 171 runs in the first innings. Joe Root and Jordan Cox together handled the England innings and made a century partnership to take the team ahead of Pakistan’s score. Cox scored quickly in the beginning and played a brilliant inning of 73 runs. He was dismissed by Ali Usman. Shortly after this, Pakistan also got the wicket of Joe Root.
Khurram Shahzad gave out LBW to Root. The ball came inside quickly and Root missed while trying to play it. The ball hit his pad directly and the umpire gave him out. With this wicket all the reviews of England also ended.
England’s grip on Pakistan strengthened
Earlier, England’s fast bowlers performed brilliantly and bowled out Pakistan’s first innings for only 171 runs. Captain Joe Root had decided to bowl first after winning the toss and the England bowlers proved this decision right. Ollie Robinson and Josh Tong broke the back of Pakistan’s batting. Both bowlers took five wickets each. Robinson recorded excellent figures of 5/51 and Tongue recorded 5/46.
For Pakistan, Abdullah Shafiq scored the highest score of 61 runs and faced the England bowlers for some time, but the rest of the batsmen could not last long. The entire Pakistan team was all out for 171 runs in 49 overs. In this way, England has strengthened its hold on the match by taking the lead in the first innings. For Joe Root, this record of 68th Test Fifty has become another big achievement in his illustrious Test career.
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