Will Joe Root overtake Sachin Tendulkar as the leading run-scorer in Test cricket?
On June 5th 2022 at Lord’s, Joe Root became the 14th cricketer and only the second ever from England to reach over 10,000 Test runs across his career during his side’s first Test against New Zealand. Root went on to score 115 not out in a successful fourth innings run chase and has followed this up with 176 against the Black Caps in the second Test at Trent Bridge, Nottingham.
At 31 years and 157 days old, Root passed the 10,000-run mark at exactly the same age as Sir Alastair Cook, the only other England batter to achieve this illustrious feat. As of June 13th 2022, Root needs another 2,281 runs to overtake Cook as England’s highest Test run-scorer of all time. But a more pertinent question is whether the Yorkshireman will overtake batting titans such as Jacques Kallis of South Africa, Ricky Ponting of Australia and eventually India legend Sachin Tendulkar.
Over a Test career spanning 24 years, Tendulkar accumulated a mammoth 15,921 runs, by far the most of any other cricketer, with his nearest competitor Ponting 2,543 runs behind. With Joe Root on 10,191 runs at the time of writing and with hopefully many more years of Test cricket ahead of him, we ask the question to you. Will Joe Root accrue the 5,730 more runs he needs to overtake the ‘Little Master’ and become cricket’s leading Test run-scorer of all time?
