Kumar Sangakkara scores 36th Test century as Sri Lanka fightback against England at Lord's

Sri Lanka's Kumar Sangakkara (C) celebrates reaching a century with Sri Lanka's Mahela Jayawardene (R) on the third day of the first cricket Test match between England and Sri Lanka at Lord's cricket ground in London on June 14, 2014.

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En route to his 36th Test century, against England at Lord’s, Sri Lankan batsman Kumar Sangakkara broke a number of notable records. Into the third day of the first Test between the two sides, Sri Lanka are currently on 397/5 in response to England’s mammoth first innings score of 575/9, with Sangakkara dismissed on 147 off 258.

The 36-year-old, who is now 4th in the list of players with most Test centuries (at par with Rahul Dravid), became the first batsman in the history of Test cricket to score centuries in three consecutive innings on 3 instances, doing so in 2009/10, 2013 and 2014. Sangakkara and Mahela Jayawardene (55) shared a 126-run partnership for the third wicket, taking their team from 151/2 to 277/3 before the latter was dismissed leg before wicket off the bowling of Stuart Broad.

The pair, now on 12,430 runs together, overtook former Indian cricketers Sourav Ganguly and Sachin Tendulkar’s record of having scored the most number of partnership runs (12,400) in international cricket. Jayawardene and Sangakkara have now together played 516 international matches, the most by any duo in the international circuit..

Becoming only the 7th Sri Lankan to score a century at Lord’s, he is also one among the only four cricketers to score a century against England at Lord’s in both ODIs and Test cricket. The other three include Sir Viv Richards, Marvan Atapattu and G Wood.

Earlier, after an initial stutter, Joe Root’s double century took the home team to an imposing first innings score. The England lower order, led by Matt Prior scoring a 131-ball 86, chipped in with valuable contributions, thereby making sure Root wasn’t devoid of support from the other end.