After Sachin Tendulkar, Joe Root goes after Rahul Dravid’s Test record

Joe Root is hunting records. Earlier today, he hit his 34th Test century and went past Alastair Cook’s record to become the Englishman with the most Test centuries. He’d hit a century in the first inning and then return to score yet another as he became just the fourth player to hit twin hundreds at Lord’s. In the last four years, Root’s been so good that people think he’ll break Sachin Tendulkar’s record for most Test runs and centuries. 

However, to do that, he needs to hit 3600 more runs and needs to smash 18 more tons. That seems difficult right now. But there is one record that he’ll surely break. After claiming the catches of Pathum Nissanka and Nishan Madushka, Root has become the player with the third most catches in Test history. As it happens, this record belongs to another Indian legend, Rahul Dravid.

Right now, Root has exactly 200 catches to his name. By the end of October, he’ll play four more Tests and would have a great chance to go past Mahela Jayawardene and Dravid. This isn’t the only record of Dravid’s that Root is close to breaking. He needs less than 1000 runs to go past his run tally and hit just 3 more centuries to go past his ton’s tally. If Root does that, he’ll statistically become the 4th most successful Test player. 

Most catches in Tests

Player	Innings	Catches	Catches per Innings
Rahul Dravid	301	210	0.697
Mahela Jayawardene	270	205	0.759
Joe Root	275	200	0.727
Jaques Kallis	315	200	0.634
Ricky Ponting	328	196	0.597