England Test captain Joe Root added another landmark to his extraordinary Test career during England’s first Test against Pakistan at Headingley, moving level with Sachin Tendulkar for the most half-centuries in Test cricket.
Root reached his 68th Test fifty on Friday before being dismissed for 66 off 112 balls, including 10 boundaries. The milestone put him alongside Tendulkar at the top of the all-time list for Test half-centuries.
West Indies great Shivnarine Chanderpaul follows with 66 fifties, while Allan Border and Rahul Dravid have 63 each. Ricky Ponting is next with 62.
The milestone came on an important day for Root, who has returned to the England Test captaincy following Ben Stokes’ retirement from international cricket in June 2026. He also reached another significant mark during the Headingley Test, becoming the first batter to score 3,000 runs as captain in the World Test Championship. Root needed 42 runs at the start of the match to reach the landmark and completed it during the second session on Day 2.
The 35-year-old now has 3,000 runs from 34 matches and 63 innings as a WTC captain, including eight centuries and 13 fifties. His average stands at 50.13, with a highest score of 228.
Root is comfortably ahead of the other leading run-scorers as WTC captains. Stokes is second with 2,182 runs, followed by Dimuth Karunaratne on 2,160, Kraigg Brathwaite on 1,994 and Babar Azam on 1,918.
The latest landmarks have come as Root continues to close the gap on another of Tendulkar’s most significant records. With 14,180 Test runs, Root is already the second-highest run-scorer in the format’s history and the leading active batter. He is 1,741 runs behind Tendulkar’s record tally of 15,921.
Root’s 66 at Headingley also took his tally of 50-plus scores in Test cricket to 109, leaving him second only to Tendulkar in that broader category.
England ended Day 2 on 366/8, holding a 195-run lead after Pakistan were bowled out for 171 in their first innings. Root’s contribution came during a 150-run partnership with Jordan Cox, who scored 73, while Harry Brook made 91 and Dan Lawrence added 51.
For Root, the numbers continue to accumulate at a remarkable rate. He has already matched Tendulkar’s record for Test fifties and is steadily closing in on the Indian legend’s run-scoring mark. With several years potentially still ahead of him, the question is no longer whether Root can enter the same statistical conversation as Tendulkar, but how much further he can go.
