England cricket team took control of the opening Test match against Pakistan with a huge total in the first innings at the end of Day 3 in Multan. Harry Brook and Joe Root registered unbeaten centuries as England scored a total of 492 for 3 in their reply to Pakistan's first innings total of 556.
England are trailing by 64 runs and with just two days of play remaining, a draw is likely to result in the first game. The Three Lions will look to add quick runs in the opening session on Day 4 and take a fighting lead in the first session in some hopes to salvage a result.
Root scored his 35th Test hundred and became England's all-time leading run-scorer in Tests by surpassing Alastair Cook and stayed unbeaten on 176 runs off 277 balls. In-form Harry Brook also scored 141* off 173 balls and the duo added an unbeaten 243 runs for the fourth wicket, the highest partnership for England against Pakistan for any wicket.
England batters dominated the Day 3 as they added 396 runs and lost just two wickets on Wednesday. Zak Crawley and Ben Duckett also contributed with big fifties with aggressive cricket as England maintained their run rate around 5 throughout their first innings.
Root stole the limelight as he continued to shatter records and set new milestones with each innings. After becoming the first cricketer to reach 5000 runs in WTC yesterday, the right-handed batter broke Cook's record for 12,472 runs to enter the history books.
Only four cricketers Sachin Tendulkar, Jacques Kallis, Ricky Ponting and Rahul Dravid have scored more Test runs than Root. He also registered his 35th Test century to go past the likes of Sunil Gavaskar and Brian Lara in the most Test hundreds record and is only behind five cricketers now.
