England's ace batter Joe Root has gone past former Indian opener Sunil Gavaskar's tally of 34 centuries as he brought up his 35th on day 3 of the opening Test against Pakistan at the Multan Cricket Stadium. The right-handed batter did so by playing a reverse sweep against leg-spinner Abrar Ahmed as a video of the same surfaced on social media.
The incident occurred in the 63rd over of the innings as the Yorkshire batter played a reverse sweep off Abrar as the ball went through to backward. With the players playing under sweltering heat, the former skipper hardly raised his bat. With 35 centuries, he also has the most number of hundreds among active players.
After going past 71 runs, Root overtook Sir Alastair Cook's tally of 12472 runs to become England's highest run-scorer in the longest format of the game.
England avoid follow-on on day 3 in Multan:
Meanwhile, the tourists have avoided the follow-on against Pakistan in Multan by going past 356. England finished day 2 on 96-1, with Ollie Pope's wicket being the only one for Pakistan. The visitors had lost Zak Crawley in the first hour of the day, but Root and Ben Duckett took the game forward by plundering boundaries at will.
Jamal denied Duckett a ton by pinning him lbw for 84 off 75 deliveries, but Root and Harry Brook have been successful whittling the lead down further. On what has been described as a lifeless pitch, England toiled for 149 overs as the hosts posted 556 all out.
