Only a Massive Virat Kohli Slump Can Stop Joe Root from Breaking Sachin Tendulkar’s 15,921-Run Test Record
Joe Root is playing his 157th Test. For now, cricket as a whole and Test cricket specifically are his foremost priorities
To many people, turning 30 comes with its own set of challenges. They experience what is popularly referred to as a ‘quarter-life crisis’, a time when they assess their choices and goals, which in turn can trigger anxiety and self-doubt.
The former England captain turned 30 on 30 December 2020. How did he celebrate it? With 228 in his first Test innings since that milestone birthday, against Sri Lanka in Galle, in January 2021. Not even he would have known then that in the next three weeks, he would unleash further scores of 186 (also in Galle in the next Test against Sri Lanka) and 218 in the following match, against India in Chennai. Or that, in the four and a half years since ringing in that milestone moment, he would amass 21 Test centuries in 60 matches.
The Yorkshireman demonstrated his affection for Test cricket in his very first outing, in Nagpur in December 2012, with a polished first-innings 73. He was only 21, but it was obvious that unless something dramatic and unexpected transpired, he would go on to become one of the greats of the sport. But even Root must be surprised at the heights he has scaled, and the rapidity with which he has achieved them. Or, he might not be, because such are the standards he has set, such are his expectations of himself.
On Friday at Old Trafford, on day three of the fourth Test against India, Root left a host of high-quality batters trailing in his wake whilst becoming the second-highest run-maker in the history of the five-day game. In one epochal day, he eased past Rahul Dravid, then Jacques Kallis and finally Ricky Ponting; now, only Sachin Tendulkar is in his sights in the run-scoring stakes. When Ravindra Jadeja terminated the entertainment on 150, the 34-year-old had amassed 13,409 runs, 2,512 behind Tendulkar’s monumental 15,921.
Root’s 38th century helped him draw abreast of Kumar Sangakkara for the most Test tons; ahead of him lie Ponting (41), Kallis (45) and Tendulkar (51). It will take a brave individual to preclude Root getting past either or both of the Indian legend’s Himalayan records.
Why? Because…
In his first 97 Tests, Root scored 7,823 runs with 17 hundreds, average 47.99, runs per match 80.65. Post his 30th birthday, the corresponding numbers in 60 matches are 5,586 runs, 21 centuries, an innings average of 56.42 and a runs per match figure of 93.1. Root was divested of the captaincy in the summer of 2022, after a horrible run at the helm, which culminated in an unedifying series loss in the Caribbean. In the three years since, 40 Tests have yielded 3,520 runs and 13 hundreds, average 57.50, runs-per-match count 88. Clearly, Joe Root knows not what it is to slow down.
Assuming Root remains injury-free (any professional sportsperson’s most important ally), accounting for a slight dip in dividends stemming from various factors, not least gradually slowing reflexes, and even pegging the runs per match ratio at a subjective 80.95 (the least productive of the three phases discussed above), it should take him somewhere in the vicinity of 31 Tests to leave Tendulkar behind. England play between 13 and 15 Tests a year; all other things being equal, at a conservative estimate, Root will take around two and a half years to reach 15,922 Test runs and sit on top of the Test pile, which will be around his 37th birthday – he is now 34 years and 208 days young.
Possible? Of course. Probable? Potentially. A cinch? Think again.
There are numerous reasons why Tendulkar is held in the highest esteem, foremost among them his consistency, embellished by his longevity. The Mumbaikar debuted when 16, and carried his country’s batting for the next 24 years, till the last of his 200 Tests in November 2013. He had his fair share of injuries, a creaking back and a tennis elbow, the foremost, but they failed to dim his fire or diminish his passion. To be able to find the motivation to hit the nets at 39 and 40 despite so many miles in the legs necessitated a bloody-mindedness that comes only to a select few.
Root is playing his 157th Test. For now, cricket as a whole and Test cricket specifically are his foremost priorities, but who’s to say that that won’t change? Who’s to say that he won’t suffer a giant form-slump of the kind Virat Kohli experienced in his last five years in the days’ game? Root might appear firmly on course to numerically better Tendulkar, but no one knows better than him that the road less travelled will be anything but smooth, the journey to the top anything but kind and forgiving.
