KARACHI: England Test captain and prolific batter Joe Root fell short by 80 runs to break the record for most runs in Tests in a calendar year by former Pakistan star batter Mohammad Yousuf. Root finished off 2021 with 1708 runs to his credit.
Root now ranks third on the list that features Mohammad Yousuf, Sir Vivian Richards, himself, Graeme Smith, Michael Clarke. Root, despite having played 10 more innings (29) than Yousuf’s and Richards’ (19), failed to surpass both of them on the third day of the third Ashes Test.
He needed to score 159 to go past Yousuf, but could only score 78 runs in two innings. Yousuf’s phenomenal purple patch came in the year 2006 when he scored nine hundreds from 11 Tests he played that year.