Joe Root’s 36th century: England’s batting blitz leaves Kiwis quacking

WELLINGTON: English Joe Root reached a huge milestone in his career by scoring his 36th Test century, during the second test match against New Zealand in Wellington.

Root scored his 36th century on the third day of the test, with his performance helping set a formidable run chase for the Kiwis.

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England declared their second innings at 427 at a loss of 6 wickets, and establishing a lead of whopping 582 runs.

Resuming the day at the crease with an overnight score of 73 not out, Joe Root added quickly to his tally. The English batter reached his century in just 127 balls.

He played aggressively and skillfully, hitting a great reverse lap shot over the wicketkeeper, Tom Blundell off bowler Will O’Rourke.

The shot showed Root’s unique batting style and helped him get to 100 runs again.

Root culminated his innings with 106 runs before getting out, catching the ball that went to Blundell, perhaps to avenge for the incident before.

After this, captain Ben Stokes declared the innings.

The English captain himself played an important role in the innings, remaining not out on 49 off 42 balls.

The partnership between Ben Stokes and Joe Root was critical for the English side, as they combined scored 100 runs against a loss of six wickets in just 13.2 overs.

Joe’s achievement placed him in the fifth place on the all-time list of test century scorers, tied with India’s Rahul Dravid.

As the match continued, New Zealand was in a tough spot at 59-4 by day three, and still 523 runs behind.

The English bowlers, it seems were determined to not be outclassed by the batters. Chris Woakes and Brydon Carse took advantage of the Kiwis’ weak batting.

The former quickly got rid of Devon Conway for a duck and then dismissed Kane Williamson with less than five runs scored!

Meanwhile, Carse took two wickets as well, with outing Kiwi captain, Tom Latham and Rachin Ravindra.

 The Kiwis will now struggle to achieve one of highest fourth-innings run chase in test history if they ever hope to win the match.

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The previous record was 418 run set by the West Indies against Australia in 2003.