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It seems like only yesterday a baby-faced Joe Root emerged out to bat for the first time in a Test match but 14 years have come and gone and the Yorkshireman is on the cusp of history.
Root made his debut December 13, 2012, against India in Nagpur, scoring 73 in his first innings and a 20* in the second but back then, few would have imagined the career he would go on to have.
The 35-year-old is now 2,078 runs away from Sachin Tendulkar and becoming the all-time leading run scorer. Root’s injury situation plus the frequency of which England play Test matches mean he should reach that tally with ease, but when exactly should we expect to see him hit the all-important 15,922 mark?
To calculate that, we need to look at the number of runs he scores in a year, the number of innings he plays and the average he has scored over the 12 months. So far in his career, Root’s batting has looked like this:
2012: 93 runs in two innings at an average of 93
2013: 862 runs in 27 innings at an average of 34.48
2014: 777 runs in 11 innings at an average of 97.12
2015: 1,385 runs in 26 innings at an average of 60.21
2016: 1,477 runs in 32 innings at an average of 49.23
2017: 966 runs in 19 innings at an average of 50.84
2018: 948 runs in 24 innings at an average of 41.21
2019: 851 runs in 23 innings at an average of 37
2020: 464 runs in 13 innings at an average of 42.18
2021: 1,708 runs in 29 innings at an average of 61
2022: 1,098 runs in 27 innings at an average of 45.75
2023: 787 runs in 14 innings at an average of 65.58
2024: 1,556 runs in 31 innings at an average of 55.57
2025: 805 runs in 18 innings at an average of 50.31
2026: 166 runs in two innings at an average of 83
Looking at the numbers, we can almost create three stages of Root’s career. His early rise, his appointment as captain in 2017 and then when he left the captain role in 2022.
If we look at the first stage from 2012 to 2016, his average was 52.8. When he was appointed captain, that figure dropped noticeably, especially in the first four years.
A purple patch in 2021 helped boost his average but even still, over those six years, Root’s average was 47.23 and him reaching Tendulkar’s record at that point looked a long way off.
But since leaving the captain’s role, his batting has got to another level. From 2023, Root has hit 3,314 runs and been dismissed 58 times, giving him an average of 57.14. Even in England’s disastrous Ashes campaign, Root was one of few players to come away with any credit – scoring two hundreds at an average of 44.44.
So if we take his post-captaincy average with the reasonable expectation that it will continue for the next few seasons, Root would require 40 innings to reach the 2,078 runs needed and surpass Tendulkar. But when will that happen?
When will Joe Root beat Sachin Tendulkar’s batting record?
Root benefits from being from a nation that plays a lot of Tests compared to other countries. To date, he has played 163 Test matches, putting him ninth on the all-time list and the third Englishman behind Stuart Broad and James Anderson.
This year, barring injury, he will add more Tests to his record with England set to play six home Test matches before winter series in South Africa and Bangladesh.
In total, in the next 12 months, Root could play 22 innings of Test match cricket which would see him add 1,257 runs to his tally if he maintains his average.
English summer fixtures for 2027 are not yet confirmed but it is an Ashes year so we know there will be at least five Test matches plus at least one warm-up ahead, giving Root the chance to play 12 more innings. That would add another 685 to his tally which would then be up to 15,885 and just 36 runs short of Tendulkar’s record.
It is possible then that Root could surpass the milestone during the Ashes series but a safer bet may well be the first winter series England play in 2027.
But at 35 and with no obvious signs of slowing down, Root surpassing the Indian legend seems a matter of when rather than if.
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The post When will Joe Root break Sachin Tendulkar’s Test batting record? appeared first on Cricket365.
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