'I can and...,' England batter Joe Root on breaking Sachin Tendulkar's record of most Test runs

England batter Joe Root surpassed Alastair Cook for most Test hundreds for the country on Saturday (Aug 31) and now is at the top among active batters with 34 Test tons. The batter also is just about 3,600 runs shy of India legend Sachin Tendulkar's record of 15,921 Test runs.

Root currently has 12,377 Test runs and was asked about breaking Sachin's record after the day's play during second Test against Sri Lanka on Saturday.

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"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," Root in a video shared by England Cricket on social media platform X.

"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 scored 103 in the second innings to take over Sir Alastair Cook's record of 33 Test tons for most Test hundreds for England.

Overall, Root is joint fifth on the list of most Test hundreds along with Pakistan's Yunis Khan, India's Sunil Gavaskar, West Indies' Brian Lara and Sri Lanka's Mahela Jayawardene. Root is now behind India's Sachin Tendulkar (51), South Africa's Jacques Kallis (45), Australia's Ricky Ponting (41), Sri Lanka's Kumar Sangakkara (38) and India's Rahul Dravid (36).

The England stalwart is at the top among the active Test batters with New Zealand's Kane Williamson (32), Australia's Steve Smith (32) and India's Virat Kohli (29) behind him.