Record-Breaker Joe Root Leaves Sri Lanka With Huge Task In Second Test

Joe Root set an England record of 34 Test centuries as Sri Lanka were left with a mammoth chase to win the second Test at Lord's on Saturday. Root's 103, the star batsman's second hundred of the match after he made 143 in the first innings, took England to a second-innings total of 251 all out on the third day. That left Sri Lanka needing 483 to level this three-Test series at 1-1 following England's five-wicket win at Old Trafford last week. Root was last man out after edging ahead of retired England opener Alastair Cook's mark of 33 Test centuries.

And having made the quickest century of his 145-Test career, off just 111 balls, the 33-year-old Root then held two catches at first slip before bad light ended play for the day.

Sri Lanka were 53-2 at stumps, needing 430 more runs in an unlikely quest to end a run of six successive Test defeats by England.

His seventh Test hundred at Lord's gave Root sole possession of the record for the most Test centuries at the 'Home of Cricket' he had shared with his fellow former England captains Graham Gooch and Michael Vaughan.

It was also the first time Root had made hundreds in both innings of a Test, the Yorkshireman joining the West Indies' George Headley, Gooch and Vaughan as the only batsmen to have achieved that feat at Lord's.

"That was good fun," Root told the BBC after the close. "It was obviously a nice situation when you are far ahead in the game. But you want to drive it forward and get it into as strong a position as possible."

He added: "It doesn't mean you can't score runs if everything isn't perfect and this is something I have learned. There are other ways you can be effective, you can rotate the strike, get a few boundaries away and it does get easier."

Root was