Who has scored the most double centuries in Test cricket?
England captain Joe Root scored his fifth double hundred on Day 2 of the first Test against India in Chennai. He got to the landmark after smashing a six off Ravichandran Ashwin.
Sir Don Bradman holds the record for having scored the most number of double centuries in Test cricket. No surprises there. In 52 matches, the Australian legend notched up 12 double hundreds. Bradman ended his career with 6996 runs at a legendary average of 99.94 with 29 hundreds and 13 fifties.
Former Sri Lankan skipper Kumar Sangakkara is second on the list with 11 double centuries from 134 matches followed by West Indian legend Brian Lara (9).
Indian captain Virat Kohli is tied with England’s Wally Hammond and Sri Lanka’s Mahela Jayawardene with seven double hundreds each. Marvan Atapattu, Virender Sehwag, Javed Miandad, Younis Khan, Ricky Ponting and Sachin Tendulkar ended their Test careers with six double centuries to their name.
Joe Root's previous double centuries
Going into his 100th Test, England captain Joe Root had notched up four double hundreds. His highest Test score of 254 came against Pakistan in Manchester in July 2016.
Joe Root scored 228 against Sri Lanka in Galle last month, 226 versus New Zealand in Hamilton (November 2019) and exactly 200 not out against Sri Lanka at Lord’s in June 2014. In addition, Joe Root also has two 190s to his name.
Speaking to the media after the first day’s play, England captain Joe Root stated that they would look for a total in the region of 600-700 runs in their first innings in Chennai. He said:
“We have got to get as many as we can; 600-700 if we can, really try to make the most of the first innings while [the pitch] is good. The foot-holes are starting to wear quickly, so if we can bat the whole of tomorrow (Saturday) or maybe day three, then things could speed up quite quickly for us. You never know what can happen from that point onwards.
At the time of filing this report, England were 448 for 4 with Joe Root not out on 206.