How Joe Root and Sir Alastair Cook compare as England Test run record broken

Root has passed fellow former captain Sir Alastair Cook’s 12,472 runs and here the PA news agency looks at how he compares.

Root vs Cook

Cook played 161 Tests and batted 291 times, averaging 45.35 for his 12,472 runs.

He scored 33 centuries and 57 fifties, with a best of 294 against India in 2011.

Root ranks first and Cook second for England in runs, centuries and scores of 50-plus, with Root second to Cook in innings. They are England’s third and fourth most-capped players behind long-time seam partnership James Anderson and Stuart Broad.

Root’s record

Root has passed Cook for fifth place on the all-time list of Test run scorers, having climbed from the final spot in a congested top 10 during July’s series against the West Indies.

He passed Sri Lanka’s Mahela Jayawardene in the first innings at Trent Bridge then West Indians Shivnarine Chanderpaul with his second-innings century and Brian Lara when he made 87 at Edgbaston.

He ticked off Jayawardene’s long-time team-mate Kumar Sangakkara in the third Test against Sri Lanka, then Cook in Multan with an on-drive shortly before lunch.

The next three names on the list are at least 800 runs ahead of Root but within 1,000, with India’s Rahul Dravid and South Africa all-rounder Jacques Kallis making 13,288 and 13,289 respectively and former Australia captain Ricky Ponting 13,378. India’s ‘Little Master’ Sachin Tendulkar made a record 15,921.

Root has more runs against India than any other opposition, 2,846 in 30 Tests. Next are Australia, against whom he has 2,428 in 34 games, while his best average is against Sri Lanka at 62.54.

Root’s influence can be seen when filtering his batting average by match result – he averages over 25 runs more in England wins than defeats, 63.18 to 34.90.

He scored 1,708 runs in 2021, the most of his career and one of five times he has passed 1,000, while his best average for a single year was 97.13 across 11 innings in 2014 – passing 50 in six of those and 100 on three occasions.

He averaged 52.80 prior to taking the captaincy in July 2017, dipped to 46.45 as skipper and has more than recovered his prior level since standing down in March 2022.

The influence of England’s new style under Ben Stokes, Root’s successor as captain, and coach Brendon McCullum is also apparent. Root’s strike rate was 54.65 before standing down as skipper and had increased to 68.08 before his knock in Multan, while he hit only 15 sixes in five years prior to taking the captaincy, 10 in five years as skipper and then 19 since, with 15 in 2023 alone.

Having occasionally been asked to move up and down the batting order during his career, Root has settled at number four where he has played 153 of his 268 Test innings, averaging 52.74. His only better average by position is at number five, with a hugely impressive 67.26 in 35 innings.

He has over 1,000 runs at Lord’s, and his best average with a minimum of four innings at one venue is 77.33 at Galle.