Chasing Mt. Sachin: The numbers at the root of Joe’s runaway renaissance

Chasing Mt. Sachin: The numbers at the root of Joe’s runaway renaissance

The England men’s cricket team is scheduled to play 22 Tests over the next 26 months, a figure indicative of how well the longest format is thriving.

However, if you are a fan of a certain 5′5″ Mumbai-born retired cricketer, this 22-Test figure might have an ominous ring.

This glut of Tests for the Three Lions provides a perfect launchpad for leading English batter Joe Root to aim for, and potentially claim, at least a few records currently held by Sachin Tendulkar.

Root has been amassing runs at a furious pace in recent years, surpassing several stalwarts in the overall Test runs tally. Since January 1, 2020, he has accumulated 5,527 runs — 2,529 more than the second-best batter, Marnus Labuschagne.

The 33-year-old Root currently has 12,886 runs in the format, placing him fifth among all-time Test run-scorers. Given his relatively injury-free career, it wouldn’t be unfathomable to expect him to continue for another five years or maybe even more.

If Root maintains his career average (50.93), he would require just under 60 innings to surpass Tendulkar’s Test run tally.

Also under threat from Root’s run accumulation is Tendulkar’s record for the most Test hundreds. Over the last four years, the Yorkshire-born batter has more than doubled his century count. Root needs only three centuries per year for the next five years to overtake Sachin’s ton tally.

Root’s recent exploits have not only elevated him to the realm of all-time greats but have also left his contemporaries in the dust.

In the wake of Tendulkar’s retirement in 2013, a vacuum emerged in Test cricket, soon filled by a clutch of batters who came to be known as the Fab Four – Steve Smith, Kane Williamson, Virat Kohli, and Root.

The Fab Four (a term coined by Kiwi legend Martin Crowe in 2014) have dominated world cricket over the past decade. However, in the group’s early years, Root’s inclusion often seemed like an afterthought, as he struggled to match the feats of the other three.

Until 2020, the four were largely neck-and-neck in the race to the 10k Test run tally. In terms of Test centuries, Root had the fewest among the four at the start of the decade, trailing Kohli by 10.

But Root has shattered this narrative over the last five years, outpacing the other three in almost every Test-related metric. His rise has been aided by the rest of the quartet grappling with the vagaries of poor form and injuries.

Kohli is now a shadow of the dominant batter he was around 2016. Smith’s idiosyncratic style no longer delivers the Bradmanesque run tallies of the past. Williamson has been plagued by relentless injuries, preventing him from enjoying a sustained period of run-scoring.

All the while, Root has moved steadily forward, aided significantly by the ‘Bazball’ phenomenon. The arrival of Brendon McCullum as England’s Test coach, combined with the proactive captaincy of Ben Stokes, has seen England bat at an unprecedented tempo in Test cricket.

This sense of batting urgency was so all-pervading that it even managed to permeate Root’s cloak of textbook batting. This is best evidenced by the right-handed batter’s recent tendency to take on pacers using the outrageous reverse scoop over slips.

Since McCullum’s appointment, Root has scored at a strike rate of 68.61, compared to a measly 54.65 in the preceding decade.

England’s renewed fascination with Test cricket has offered Root the perfect runway to launch himself towards the summit of cricket’s statistical Mt. Everest. With innovative shots in his repertoire and buoyant form under his wings, it will hardly surprise anyone if he topples Sachin and co. from their perch at the pinnacle of the game.