Joe Root scored his sixth Test century at Lord's today (August 29), drawing level with Graham Gooch and Michael Vaughan for the most Test centuries scored at the venue.
Root was in early on Day One at Lord's after England lost two quick wickets in the first half of the morning session. Dan Lawrence nicked behind in the seventh over of play before Ollie Pope top-edged an easy catch for one run off 10 balls. Following that, however, Root was imperious.
He batted out the rest of the session with Harry Brook following Ben Duckett's wicket, going into Lunch on 29. After the break, he continued his partnership with Brook, which reached 48 runs before Brook was trapped LBW, and stitched together a 62-run partnership with Jamie Smith before he was out just ahead of the Tea interval.
Woakes was out after the break, shortly after which Root moved to 99. He faced 12 dot deliveries one run short of three figures, before he guided a ball from Lahiru Kumara between slip and gully to reach his century.
It was the 33rd Test century of Root's career, drawing him level with Alastair Cook for the most men's Test centuries scored for England, and into the top ten on the all-time list. Root also went past another Cook record in the innings, taking over from him as the leading run-scorer in Tests in England. Cook previously held the record with 6,568 runs.
For Test centuries at Lord's, Root is now in an exclusive club with six. Vaughan and Gooch are the only other players with as many centuries at the historic ground, while Ben Stokes is the only other currently active England player with more than one.
However, Root is still a fair way off having the most Test centuries at a single venue. Mahela Jayawardene is the current record-holder in that regard, having scored 11 of his Test centuries in Colombo. He also scored seven of his 34 Test centuries in Colombo, giving him 18 across two venues in the city.
After reaching his hundred, Root upped his scoring rate. He hit Milan Rathnayake for a boundary before taking two off one over from Kamindu Mendis. Combined with agressions from Gus Atkinson, the pair pushed England on towards 300 in the second half of the evening session.
Full list: Most Test hundreds at Lord's
- Graham Gooch - 6
Michael Vaughan - 6
Joe Root - 6 - Kevin Pietersen - 5
Andrew Strauss - 5 - Ian Bell - 4
Alastair Cook - 4
Allan Lamb - 4 - Geoff Boycott - 3
Denis Compton - 3
John Edrich - 3
Jack Hobbs - 3
Nasser Hussain - 3
Len Hutton - 3
Matt Prior - 3
Alec Stewart - 3
Ben Stokes - 3
Dilip Vengsarkar - 3
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