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Last week, the former England Test captain, Joe Root, celebrated an incredible four days at Lord’s as he smashed most centuries of the longest format as an England batter, going past his very first captain, Sir Alastair Cook, who recorded 33 three-figure marks in his career.

With England already taking an unbeatable lead in the three games with a 2-0 margin, the eyes were on Joe Root to capture another record in the longest format of the game. In the list of all-time run-scorers, the right-handed batter was at number five coming into the third game at the Kennington Oval in South London.

Sri Lanka captain Dhananjaya de Silva, on winning the toss, decided to use the chilly conditions of the city and invited the opposition batters in the middle, who smashed the visiting bowlers all around the ground. The stand-in captain for the home side, Ollie Pope, and their opening batter, Ben Duckett, looked in great touch.

Joe Root leapfrogs Kumar Sangakkara to become sixth leading Test run-getter

With the dismissal of Duckett on 86, Joe Root walked into the middle with a huge reception from the crowd, who anticipated something similar from the best batter of the format. The conditions were not easy in the middle, with the ball swinging a bit, but Sri Lanka managed to find their worst day regarding line and length.

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It wasn’t a very comfortable stay for the Yorkshire batter, who started well, flicking the leg-sided delivery for a boundary. But the short ball from the expressive pace bowler, Lahiru Kumara, was too good to handle as he went with his pull to find the hands of Vishwa Fernando at the square region.

Harry Brook looked in good touch, but once he got out, the rest of the batting fell like a pack of cards, and from the strongest position of 261/3, the home side could manage only 64 runs for the rest of their seven wickets and were bundled out for 325 in the first innings. It was one of those rare failures from Joe Root.

England got a vital lead of 62 runs. The need of the hour was to bat for a day and so, but the hosts had some different plans, as all the batters went in their T20 mode and looked to smash every single delivery out of the park, which at a point looked shocking and bizarre.

Joe Root again finds himself in the middle just after lunch on the third day, as he looked to be back in form. The sweet cover drive for a boundary saw him celebrating the landmark as he went past the former Sri Lankan captain, Kumar Sangakkara, to become the sixth-highest run-getter of the red-ball moment.

The celebration didn’t stay long, as a fiery swinging delivery from Fernando found the 33-year-old plumb before the stumps. He returned to the dressing room on 12, shouldering on a couple of boundaries as England were bundled out for 156 runs in their second innings.

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He now stands inches closer to another record of becoming the very first batter to collect 5000 runs in the history of the World Test Championship (WTC), as he needs 27 more runs to achieve the feat.