Kolkata, July 26 -- On the sidelines of England dismantling India's listless bowling to pocket session after session ran the Joe Root show where reaching his 38th Test hundred was the precursor to a bigger achievement - surpassing Ricky Ponting to become the second highest Test scorer after Sachin Tendulkar. Jacques Kallis and Rahul Dravid had been bested in the morning. This was also Root's ninth hundred against India at home - the most by a batter against an opponent in home Tests; and overall his 12th against India, also the most for any batter after toppling Steve Smith. He is now level with Kumar Sangakkara on 38 hundreds, with only Ponting (41), Kallis (45) and Tendulkar (51) ahead of him. Note the names Root has joined. This is the pantheon of greats, the finest Test batters in the last three decades. Virat Kohli was once tipped to be here because he was the king. As was the idiosyncratic run machine named Steve Smith. So elegant was Kane Williamson when he caressed fours, it almost masked the disparity that New Zealand face every year by way of number of Tests allotted to them. In fact, in the four-way race to cricket immortality of this era, Root was almost always mentioned last. It may have something to do with Root's nationality, as there hasn't been an England batter with a similar appetite for runs since Graham Gooch, and even he had retired in 1995. Or maybe it has to do with the low-key image Root maintains, keeping off T20 cricket and committing himself to playing every Test possible. To it add the consistency of scoring - an average of over 50 even after playing 156 Tests, 66 fifties, and 23,111 balls faced before this Test. Root's strokes are not only vast but also forever expanding. Often, in each substantial innings he would play a shot you wouldn't expect, a ramp, a reverse ramp, not to forget the oft-deployed sweep. It made him a predictably unpredictable batter at a time Kohli and Williamson stuck to convention. A sizable portion of those runs were scored as the leader of a unit that was struggling, which meant it was all the more crucial that Root fired almost every Test. He isn't England's captain now but the responsibility is no less. Apart from being an untiring converter of starts, Root remains England's most durable response to quality spin bowling. Which was again visible on Friday, when Washington Sundar removed Ollie Pope and Harry Brook in the space of four overs. Root was unmoved though, sure outside his off stump, carving out runs that slowly put England in the ascendancy. Root overtook Dravid and Kallis off successive balls, got to his hundred with an easy boundary off Anshul Kamboj before surpassing Ponting by steering Kamboj for a single. And yet there was no big celebration from his side. Ponting was present at Old Trafford at that moment, commentating for Sky Sports. "Congratulations, Joe Root. Magnificent," Ponting said. "Second on the table, 120 not out. This crowd at the ground, this very knowledgeable crowd here at Old Trafford, stands as one. Just the one more to go now. About 2,500 runs behind (Tendulkar), but the way that his career has gone over the last four or five years, there's absolutely no reason why not." "He's been a wonderful player through those 157 Test matches. He's been such a consistent player, hasn't he? You don't really remember a long period of time where he's had a lean run. These last four or five years, it seems like every time he gets a start and gets to 50, it seems like he's pushing on and making a hundred - and not just a hundred, making big hundreds, which is also the sign of a great player." No one could have summed up Root's career better. Endorsing him to break Tendulkar's record too isn't an exaggeration, given Root is still 34, largely injury-free and thus still has at least three-four years ahead of him. Over time, as all batsmen do, Root has regressed to the mean. But that mean has been so exceptional that it's now a benchmark of consistency for contemporaries as well as younger batters. Old Trafford was witness to that consistency again, as Root quietly crossed 1,000 runs at the venue, his second after Lord's. Till he was finally stumped by a ripper from Ravindra Jadeja, and Root walked off holding his bat to a rousing applause....