Wed Oct 09 08:09:42 UTC 2024: ## Joe Root Overtakes Alistair Cook as England’s Highest Test Run-Scorer in Historic Multan Test
**Multan, Pakistan:** England’s star batsman Joe Root has scripted history in the first Test against Pakistan in Multan, surpassing legendary batsman Alistair Cook to become England’s highest Test run-scorer.
Root achieved this milestone by scoring 71 runs in the first innings of the match, taking his overall Test tally for England to 12,473 runs, surpassing Cook’s record of 12,472 runs. Not only did Root break a national record, but he also moved into fifth place on the list of highest Test run-scorers in the world.
This Multan Test has proven to be a landmark for Root, who also became the first player to reach the 1,000-run mark in 2024, marking his fifth instance of scoring over 1,000 runs in a calendar year. This puts him second only to Sachin Tendulkar, who achieved the feat six times. He has also joined an elite group of cricketers including Ricky Ponting, Brian Lara, Jacques Kallis, Alistair Cook, and Kumar Sangakkara to have achieved this feat.
Further adding to his historic performance, Root became the only batsman to score 5,000 runs in the history of the ICC World Test Championship, which began in 2019 with the Ashes series.
Root’s consistent performance sees him now ranked fifth in the world for Test run-scorers, trailing behind Sachin Tendulkar (15,921), Ricky Ponting (13,378), Jacques Kallis (13,289), and Rahul Dravid (13,288). If he continues his prolific run-scoring, Root could potentially climb to second place in the world by 2025.
First Piper 