New Delhi. England's star batsman Joe Root has achieved another big achievement in Test cricket. In the third Test match against Pakistan, Root played such a brilliant inning which led England to victory and also registered a historic record in his name. Root scored unbeaten 62 runs in 69 balls and during this innings he took the 13 year old record of great Indian batsman Sachin Tendulkar in his name. Now Joe Root has become the batsman with the most number of half-centuries in the history of Test cricket.
Pakistan had set a target of 130 runs for England to win. England's chase of the target did not have a good start and the team lost its early wickets. After this, Joe Root took the responsibility and batted brilliantly to get the team out of the difficult situation. Root scored without any pressure and converted his innings into a half-century. As soon as he crossed the 50-run mark, his name got associated with a special record in cricket history.
This was Joe Root's 69th fifty in Test cricket. Earlier, the record of scoring most Test half-centuries was in the name of Sachin Tendulkar. Sachin had scored 68 half-centuries in his illustrious Test career. Root has now left Sachin behind by completing his 69th fifty. In this list, West Indies legend Shivnarine Chanderpaul is at third place with 66 half-centuries. India's Rahul Dravid and Australia's Allan Border have 63 Test half-centuries each.
Root's achievement is also special because this record of Sachin Tendulkar had been standing for a long time. Sachin had said goodbye to Test cricket in 2013 and since then many big batsmen came close to this record but no one could cross it. Now former England captain Joe Root has achieved this position by continuously performing brilliantly. Consistency in his batting is considered to be his biggest strength and this is the reason why he is constantly seen around many big records of Test cricket.
In the same match against Pakistan, Root made another special achievement in his name. He completed his 1000 runs in Test cricket at Edgbaston ground. This is the fourth ground in the world where Root has scored one thousand or more runs in Test cricket. Earlier, he had also achieved this feat at Lord's Manchester and The Oval. Apart from him, only Jacques Kallis and Ricky Ponting have achieved the feat of scoring more than 1000 runs in Tests on four different grounds.
The result of this match was also very special for England. England defeated Pakistan by eight wickets to complete a 3-0 clean sweep in the three-match Test series. Pakistan was restricted to only 133 runs in the first innings. After this, the team made a comeback in the second innings and scored 449 runs in which Shan Masood scored 95 runs, Babar Azam scored 76 runs and Razaullah scored 81 runs. Despite this, England's first innings score of 453 runs proved to be decisive and Pakistan set a target of only 130 runs for England.
England achieved this target by losing just two wickets. Joe Root remained unbeaten on 62 runs while Jordan Cox also played an unbeaten inning of 59 runs. With this victory, England completely wiped out Pakistan in the series and Joe Root made a record with his bat which will remain discussed for a long time in the history of Test cricket.