Continuing his red-hot form with the bat, England captain Joe Root scored yet another half-century in the ongoing second Test against West Indies at Headingley to equal South Africa’s AB de Villiers’ record of scoring at least an half-century in twelve consecutive Test matches.
Root scored the first of the 12 half-centuries against Bangladesh in Dhaka last October when he made 56. In the following game, he scored a sublime hundred against India in Rajkot, making 124 as the visitors had Virat Kohli & Co. on the mat before the hosts managed to escape with a draw. England had gone on to lose the five-match series 4-0 but Root continued his fine show with the bat, finishing the series as its second highest run-scorer with 491 runs including a century and 4 fifties.
The eight-month gap between the series in India and South Africa, meanwhile, did not affect Root’s form as he began the summer with a majestic 190 on his captaincy debut before scoring half-centuries at Trent Bridge, the Oval and Old Trafford against the Proteas. In the ongoing series against West Indies, he has already scored a century in the first Test and has now followed it up with a record fifty.
Overall, the England skipper has scored 1,202 runs in those 12 Test matches at an impressive average of 57.23.
Meanwhile, de Villiers and Root are followed by Sir Vivian Richards, Gautam Gambhir, Virender Sehwag and Mominul Haque who all have scored at least a fifty in 11 consecutive Tests.
Here is the full list of players with most scores of at least fifty in consecutive Tests:
| Fifty-plus scores in consecutive Tests | Players |
| 12 | AB de Villiers |
| Joe Root | |
| 11 | Vivian Richards |
| Virender Sehwag | |
| Gautam Gambhir | |
| Mominul Haque | |
| 10 | John Edrich |
| Sachin Tendulkar | |
| 9 | Everton Weekes |
| Alec Stewart | |
| Matthew Hayden | |
| Jacques Kallis | |
| Simon Katich | |
| Kumar Sangakkara |
*Stats are updated up to 25th August 2016