Conversion rate has been a major issue for England Test captain Joe Root, who last scored his century in the traditional format in November 2019 in Hamilton. 14 months later, Root ended his long wait with the addition of an 18th Test century to his name and later converted it to a well-composed 228 off 321 balls laced with 18 fours and a six in England's first Test against Sri Lanka at the Galle. The knock took the visitors to 421 just before lunch, thus handing them a 286 run lead.
2 Root, en route to his knock, became the second-fastest Englishman to 8000 Test runs having reached the milestone in 178 innings. Only Kevin Pietersen got there faster - in 176 innings. He also became the seventh from his country to reach the milestone, with four others achieving the feat in less than 200 innings - Alastair Cook, Graham Gooch, Goefrey Boycott and David Gower.
4 is the number of double centuries that Root now has to his name which places him joint 16th in the overall list and tied at second among active players alongside Kane Williamson, with only Virat Kohli standing ahead of th apir with seven such scores. Only Wally Hammond and Cook have reached 200 on more occasions - 7 and 5 respectively - for England.
228 is now the second-highest score by an England batsman in Asia after Alastair Cook's 263 against Pakistan in Abu Dhabi in 2015 and Root's highest ever, surpassing his identical scores of 124 racked up in 2018 in Pallekel against Sri Lanka and against India in 2016 in Rajkot.
4 England captains have now scored a double century in away Tests - Cook, Len Hutton and Ted Dexter being the others, but only Root has two such scores.
