Breaking down four sensational years of Joe Root

On Wednesday, Joe Root leapfrogged Alastair Cook to become England's highest scorer in Test cricket. On Thursday , he broke all sorts of records in a 454-run stand with Harry Brook. Here's a stats run through of Root's purplest of purple patches, dating back to 2021.

At the end of 2020, Joe Root saw his average dip below 48.00. He had averaged less than 40 between 2018 and 2020 , scoring just four centuries in 60 innings. There were questions about whether he still belonged in the Fab Four along with Steven Smith, Virat Kohli and Kane Williamson. But since the start of 2021, Root has outperformed those three by a significant margin.

A ton every five innings
Root began 2021 with a mammoth double-ton in Galle and followed it up with a daddy hundred in the next Galle Test and then hit 218 in Chennai. Overall, since 2021, Root has 18 centuries in 91 innings. Smith (6), Kohli (2) and Williamson (9) have 17 combined in that period.

Twice as good as the pack
Root's closest competition in the past four years has actually come from outside the Fab Four, but even the next highest run-getters of the period have just over half the runs Root has scored in this time.

Back to the 50-plus group
While you could put the volume of Root's runs down to how many Tests England play - he has played 50 in the past four years, 16 more than Smith and Labuschagne and 30 more than Williamson - he has got those runs at an ever-increasing average. While he was below 48.00 at the start of 2021, he went past the 50-mark in the same year, and with his 262 in Multan, has gone past 51.00 for the first time since 2018.

1000-plus in a year, five times
Root's 262 in Multan also took him past 1000 runs in 2024. This is the third time in the past four years he has scored 1000 in the year and the fifth time overall. Only Sachin Tendulkar has more 1000-run years in Tests , with six. Ricky Ponting, Kumar Sangakkara, Matthew Hayden, Alastair Cook, Brian Lara and Jacques Kallis have also done it five times.

Chasing Yousuf?
Root now has 1248 runs in 2024 and still has, potentially, five Tests to play: two more in Pakistan and three in New Zealand. If he bats at his 2024 average of 65.68, he will need nine more innings to overtake Mohammad Yousuf 's record of 1788 Test runs in a calendar year.

Tendulkar in Root's sights
Having outstripped his contemporaries in the past four years, Root is now chasing all-time records. He is now fifth on the Test run-getters list and sixth on the centuries list . If he maintains the average he has scored at in the past four years, Root will need 56 more Test innings to pass Sachin Tendulkar's record of 15,921 Test runs. At the rate England play Tests, Root could get there within three years, before he turns 37. Oddsmakers are already giving Root as good as a 33% chance to haul down Tendulkar's tally.

Hammond's doubles being run down
Root had already gone past Alastair Cook to become England's all-time leading run-getter in Tests on day three of the Multan Test. On day four, he made his century a double, his sixth in Tests . Only Wally Hammond has more doubles for England, with seven . This was Root's third Test double-century in Asia, making him the first visiting batter to achieve this feat.