Think about all of the batting giants you can in Test cricket. A list full of players like Sachin Tendulkar, Jacques Kallis, and Alastair Cook will appear in your mind. All retired now. Heroes of the past. But then there is one from them, who is rising through the ranks, day by day, swiftly and very steadily. He still has not hung his boot and by the sounds of it, does not intend to do so anytime soon. Besides having scored a slew of runs in his career so far, he plays the longest format more frequently than others.
It’s common sense that scoring runs consistently in a 145-match-long career is not easy. It’s one thing to maintain a 50-plus average in a career with a maximum of 100 matches, it’s entirely another thing to do the same when your team plays at least 10 matches a year. But Joe Root is an extra-terrestrial being and his knocks, more than anything else, are a testament to that. With his recent knock against Sri Lanka at the Lord’s, which was the 34th ton of his Test career, he has surpassed his senior Sir Alastair Cook as the English player with the highest number of Test centuries. He is also almost a hundred runs away from becoming the leading run-getter in Tests for England. Keeping his form in view, he might just do that next week when England will meet Sri Lanka for the third and final Test.
Of his 34 centuries, he took around a decade to notch up the first 17 and just two years for the next half. Thats incredible even by someone like Root’s standards. But what’s more incredible is that people have gotten used to watching his willow churn out runs. Root scored another ton? Yawn.
The way where Test cricket is headed, many records that Root is currently on the spree to add to his bag, might always stay with him. For instance, the next current player on the highest Test run-scorer list is Steve Smith, who has nearly 4000 runs less than the English batter. It’s safe to say at whichever point Joe decides to retire, his position on the list will remain safe for a long time, if not forever.
Before this year ends, the 33-year-old batter has, if all remains well, six more Tests to play. He would not want to miss out on making the maximum of these fixtures. After all, he is just some 900 runs short of shooting right amongst the top four, top three, or even top two.
It’s funny how Root has made it sound so simple. Scoring 900 runs seems like a child’s play if we know the player on the crease is Joe Root. But, we assure you, it’s not as easy as the English player has made it look. Consistency is a fickle friend of a cricketer. You can’t always count on it to be by your side. There is just a moment’s gap between rock bottom and zenith in cricket. But that is what segregates a good player from a great player. Many believe Root is very likely to go past even Sachin Tendulkar. There is no denying that he has every opportunity to do that. With his current average (and if he were to maintain that average), he will need 35-ish matches to achieve that milestone. But maintaining form for 35 matches to come is a huge task in itself. And only the player willing to uptake this task would really deserve to snatch that crown from Tendulkar. Joe Root has to prove to himself, more than others, that he is capable of that.
