Joe Root reached a major milestone of 12,000 Test runs in Birmingham on Saturday, surpassing Brian Lara’s total runs in Test cricket.
Root scored an impressive hundred at Edgbaston on the second day of the ICC World Test Championship match against West Indies. This achievement also marked his crossing of the 12,000-run milestone in Test cricket.
He is only the second English player, after Alastair Cook, to achieve this. Root hit this milestone when he reached 60 runs in Birmingham, helping his team recover from 54 for 5 alongside Ben Stokes.
Root was eventually out for 87, with Gudakesh Motie taking his crucial wicket. During his innings, Root moved up the all-time Test cricket run chart, surpassing the legendary Brian Lara, who had 11,953 runs. Root is now the seventh highest run-scorer in Test cricket history, having started the series in 10th position and moving past players like Mahela Jayawardene and Shivnarine Chanderpaul.
| Player | Runs in Test cricket |
| Sachin Tendulkar | 15921 |
| Ricky Ponting | 13378 |
| Jacques Kallis | 13289 |
| Rahul Dravid | 13288 |
| Alastair Cook | 12472 |
| Kumar Sangakkara | 12400 |
| Joe Root | 12027 |
| Brian Lara | 11953 |
| Shivnarine Chnaderpaul | 11867 |
| Mahela Jayawardene | 11814 |
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Joe Root (with 1023 runs) nearly caught up with Yashasvi Jaiswal (who has 1028 runs) in the ICC World Test Championship 2023-25 run charts.
Root and the Indian opener, Jaiswal, are the only players to have scored over 1000 runs in this WTC cycle. Zak Crawley is in third place with 984 runs after England’s first innings in Birmingham.