Around 20 minutes after the start of play England were in crisis. Two more first-innings wickets had fallen leaving them five down, they still trailed by 223 and Ben Stokes, standing at the bowler’s end, was yet to score. Joe Root guided the ball to long leg, the 14th run of his innings and the 11,954th of his Test career, to become the seventh highest-scorer in Test cricket, overtaking the watching Brian Lara. Another run, another step towards history.
This is the one run chase Root claims not to be interested in, but he is making remarkable progress: having started this series in 10th place he had already overtaken Mahela Jayawardene and Shivnarine Chanderpaul. He is averaging 72.75 this summer and is on course to ease past Kumar Sangakkara and, perhaps by the end of the final Test in September, usurp Alastair Cook, the highest Englishman on the list in fifth. Having just lost their most successful wicket-taker after the retirement of Jimmy Anderson, the period this England team spends without one of their all-time No 1s in their ranks could be measured in weeks.
