Nottingham, Aug 5 (IANS): England fans at the Trent Bridge may have been disheartened by the spineless batting performance from their team in first innings of the first Test on Wednesday, but they had to doff their hats to skipper Joe Root who became England's top run-getter in international cricket.

The 30-year-old surpassed Sir Alastair Cook during his innings of 64 as England's batsman with most runs across all international cricket. On Wednesday, he looked the only England batsman capable of scoring big during his stay at the wicket.

Root now has 15,780 runs. He is playing the 290th international match of his career.

He went past Cook's 15,737 runs, when he reached 22.

Kevin Pietersen is third with 13,779 runs.

The England captain has 36 international hundreds, 20 of which have come in 105 Tests. He has scored 16 tons in 152 ODIs.

However, the record for most international runs is held by India's Sachin Tendulkar who has aggregated 34,357 runs in 664 matches with 100 centuries.