England vs India: Joe Root's makes it a hat-trick of Lord's Test tons as he goes past Rahul Dravid and Steve Smith

After a reasonably lukewarm start to the series, Joe Root returned to his best to continue his love affair with Lord's. The 34-year-old brought up his 37th Test ton on the second day of the third Test against India. It was Root's third hundred in a row at the Home of Cricket, a knock befitting his status as one of the game's finest batters.

While getting past hundred, Root went past his peer Steve Smith and Indian legend Rahul Dravid, both of whom have 36 Test tons to their name. Amidst all the Bazball chaos, Root's ton lead a very unusually attritional English batting effort on a Lord's pitch that seemed to play the odd trick even as it still seemed good for batting. Root played his usual tempo, treating each ball on its merit and punishing anything remotely loose.

Root had a decent game at Headingley where he failed to convert a start (28) in the first innings but produced a controlled innings of 53* to see England through to victory. However, under better batting conditions at Edgbaston, Root had scores of 22 and 6, and most importantly, looked out of sorts both times before being dislodged by superb deliveries. At Lord's, though, Root was at his magical best and weathered everything that India threw at him without offering the visitors a chance.

Root's marathon innings came to an end when he got a cracking nip-backer from Jasprit Bumrah that cut him into half, seaming in a mile from outside off stump to eke out a faint inside edge that ricocheted into the stumps. Nevertheless, Root's masterclass had propelled England who were under pressure after the big defeat at Edgbaston. The English batting mainstay now has 13218 Test runs, fifth in the all-time list and 2703 behind Sachin Tendulkar (15921) who sits on top.

Dravid (13288), Jacques Kallis (13289) and Ricky Ponting (13378) are the other batters who have most Test runs than Root at present. Meanwhile, the English no.4 is now level with Kallis and Ponting with 103 fifties in the longest format. It's Tendulkar again who leads the list with 119, the only person who has more fifties than the trio.