Published By: Saksham Mishra

Batters with most Test hundreds in England

All four of Kevin Pietersen, Ian Bell, Graham Gooch and Alastair Cook have struck 15 centuries on English soil in Test cricket.

On top

Joe Root currently stands with 15 centuries as well but will comfortably overtake the likes of Kevin Pietersen, Ian Bell, Graham Gooch and Alastair Cook by the time his career comes to an end.

Root recently took England to victory in the Lord's test match against New Zealand, successfully chasing down New Zealand's target of 277. He remained unbeaten on 150 off 170 balls and had a brilliant partnership with Ben Foakes as England were successful in coming out of the rut of having won just one test match out of their last 17.

Stokes' backing

Newly appointed captain Ben Stokes was understandably elated after England beat New Zealand in the three match test series.

"It's not an overnight thing," Stokes said. "This is what me and Brendon are trying to work towards and we know that, but a great start to win. When Foakesy went out to bat, he was going to send Broady in if we lost the wicket to go and have a slog, just to score 30, 40 runs, game's done. That's the kind of stuff that we're not used to in the dressing room. Those kinds of things filtering around will do us the world of good.

"The confidence and the energy that he brings about, his mindset towards the game, he's just going to make everybody feel 10-foot tall in any situation that we're in and I've really enjoyed working with him so far this week. It's a great start, we've won, there's obviously going to be you know, ups and downs. And it's just about dealing with that but I think having me and Brendon in charge, it's going to be really important how we operate when things don't go well."

Better than the best

What is interesting is that Joe Root has reached 15 centuries in test cricket quicker than Ian Bell, Graham Gooch and Alastair Cook. While Bell took 65 matches and 108 innings to reach 15 test centuries, Cook and Gooch took 89 and 74 matches respectively.

Joe Root took just 60 matches to reach 15 centuries in test cricket. Only Kevin Pietersen has scored 15 test centuries at a quicker rate than Root, having taken just 89 innings of 53 matches for the same.