Will Joe Root conquer the Tendulkar peak?

One of the milestones achieved during the fourth Test of the just-concluded series between India and England at Old Trafford was Joe Root moving past Ricky Ponting to emerge as the second-highest run scorer in Tests. The Englishman’s tally of 13,543 runs after the final Test at The Oval places him 2,378 runs below Sachin Tendulkar’s tally of 15,921 runs.

Root has played 158 Tests in his 12-and-a-half-year career in international cricket. This is far fewer than Tendulkar’s 200 Tests in 24 years. Amongst the five batsmen who have scored more than 13,000 Test runs, Root has played in the least number of matches, with Ricky Ponting (13,378 runs in 168 Tests), Jacques Kallis (13,289 in 166) and Rahul Dravid (13,288 in 164) all having played more matches than him. This not only shows his higher output with the willow at the highest level, but also indicates that he is better placed than any other batsman in the past to better the record of Tendulkar.

Till the 1950s, all records in batting stood in the name of Don Bradman. He came close to reaching 7,000 runs in 52 Tests, but fell short by just four, when Eric Hollis bowled him for nought in his final outing for Australia. Despite this, he managed to attain a near “impossible to emulate” average of 99.94, by scoring a total of 6,996 runs in 70 completed innings. Gary Sobers, a genius with both bat and ball, went one better than the great Don, when he became the first cricketer to cross 8,000 runs. Sobers finished with a tally of 8,032 runs in 93 Tests played between 1954 and 1974.

Sunil Gavaskar, who entered the Test cricket arena in Indian colours in 1971, rewrote most of the batting records during his 17-year career. He created history when he crossed the 10,000 run mark in his 124th Test against Pakistan at Ahmedabad in March 1987. He played 125 Tests, scoring a total of 10,122 runs. The next peak of 15,000 runs was scaled by Tendulkar in 2011, while batting against the West Indies at Delhi in his 182nd Test. Tendulkar topped his career by striking 51 hundreds, another record that remains unconquered to this day.

Root made his debut in first-class cricket for Yorkshire in May 2010 as an opening batsman and made his mark during the season that followed. A string of good scores in the county championships earned him a place in the England squad that toured India in 2012-13. He made his entry into the world of international cricket in the final Test of the series played at Nagpur. Root batted as a No. 6 batter, but adjusted quickly to the demands of the situation and played a patient innings of 73 off 229 balls, against the Indian spin attack comprising Ravichandran Ashwin, Ravindra Jadeja, Pragyan Ojha and Piyush Chawla. His Test debut coincided with a rare series win for England on Indian soil.

After this successful entry into the Test squad, Root consolidated his position in the side with consistent performances in the middle order. By the second half of the second decade of this century, he had become acknowledged as one of the top four batsmen in the world, along with Virat Kohli of India, Kane Williamson of New Zealand and Steve Smith of Australia. He scored prodigiously in limited-overs cricket as well, turning up for England in three consecutive International Cricket Council (ICC) World Cups. He stopped playing T20 Internationals in 2019 and, later on, became an occasional participant in One Day Internationals (ODIs).

Like his other three in Fab4, he also captained his country, a task that he took up with enthusiasm and energy. Though he led the team in 64 Tests, a record for England, and won 24 out of them, he did not have any major success, like an Ashes victory or an overseas win to show for his efforts. Towards the later stages, captaincy also affected his batting and he was replaced by Ben Stokes in 2022.

Root’s career received a new lease of life after he stepped down from captaincy. The arrival of Brendon McCullum as the head coach and his teaming up with skipper Stokes to formulate a new strategy called “bazball” has revolutionised Test cricket. England underwent a rapid transformation and shed their reputation as dour, unimaginative cricketers under this duo. The new culture of playing the game without fear of failure was as novel as it was courageous. And the team benefited immensely as they started winning matches regularly.

Conventional wisdom suggested that Root, schooled in the traditional art of batsmanship and a prominent purveyor of this style, would feel ill at ease with the new management and the style of play espoused by them. But he shocked everyone by turning into a vital cog of this new-look England team. He analysed his game and made the subtle changes required to perform in the new milieu. This yielded big dividends as the period since 2023 has seen him bat with an extraordinary hunger to succeed. He has averaged at 60 plus in Tests in the last two years and maintained a strike rate over 70, which shows the positive impact of “bazball” cricket on this veteran.

Will he overtake Tendulkar?
At 34, Root may play for at least three more years at this level. He is in top form presently, scoring centuries in the last three Tests he played. England play, on average, 11 Tests in a year and thus Root will have around 60 innings to score the 2,378 runs that he needs to achieve this landmark. Given his career batting average of 57.59 and current output that exceeds 60 runs in an innings, this should be a relatively easy task.

However, the history of cricket shows that great players tend to show a decline in prowess during their final years in the game. Tendulkar’s output with the willow decreased sharply in the last phase of his career when he was in search of the “hundredth hundred”. Kapil Dev had to huff and puff to go past Richard Hadlee and take the maximum number of wickets in Test cricket. In recent times, we saw Kohli struggling with the bat in his final years against opposition that he used to devour in his prime. Even a player of the calibre and brilliance of Sobers struggled with the bat in his last Test series, against England in 1974, when he completed 8,000 runs.

It will be interesting to note how Root tackles the challenges that come his way as he attempts to dislodge Tendulkar from his perch as the highest accumulator of Test runs. This will not amount to replacing Tendulkar from his exalted place in the history of the game, but only send across the message that no record is sacrosanct. Further, it also merits mention that Joe Edward Root is the cricketer best qualified, both on account of technique and temperament, as well as by the popular support to attain this milestone.

Congratulations, Joe Root, on your accomplishments with the willow! May you be blessed with the strength and fortitude to surmount the challenges that come your way as you take fresh guard at the crease!