Joe Root vs Sachin Tendulkar: Can the England star break the Test cricket legend’s record? A statistical comparison.
The talk of the town in the last few weeks has been around whether Joe Root would be able to overtake Sachin Tendulkar’s Test run tally. The England fans have found methods to calculate when he could do so. However, they don’t have any doubt about whether he would or not. Expectedly, most India fans are not ready to accept the potential future.
Root is currently the second leading run-getter in the longest format with 13543 runs. He overtook Ricky Ponting, Jacques Kallis, and Rahul Dravid in the list during the third Lord’s Test. Tendulkar stands at the top with 15921 runs, with a lead of 2378 runs before the Yorkshire batter.
Joe Root stands behind Sachin Tendulkar at current rate
After 288 innings in the red-ball format, Tendulkar had nearly 1000 runs more than Root. He had already celebrated his 50th century in the format by then.
With the number of Tests the ‘big three’ play, it’s nearly impossible for other players to overtake Tendulkar. Even Steven Smith, who made his debut two years before Root, lies behind the former England captain by more than 3000 runs.
Sir Alastair Cook explained the goal he kept ticking during his national career, ‘In my opinion, you have to have something attainable as a personal thing, which doesn’t go above the team.’ On BBC, he claimed his desire to run at five in the morning because he badly wanted to cross the 10000 Test runs.
That’s the same case with the 34-year-old, whose Test record is better than Tendulkar’s at home. However, his average drops terribly in comparison to the Mumbai-born in away red-ball fixtures.
Read More: How do Joe Root’s Test numbers compare with Steven Smith
In the innings-wise comparison, Root is behind Tendulkar by a huge margin in terms of the first-innings average. However, he has surpassed the veteran’s number in the fourth innings. Since the start of June 2022, during the Bazball era, the right-handed batter has smashed 824 runs at 82.40. However, till April 2022 since his debut, his fourth-innings average was only 32 for 1024 runs in 37 innings.
The Sheffield-born crossed the 50-average mark in the last three consecutive years, apart from 2022. It wasn’t, however, the same with Tendulkar, who had an exceptional average in 2010 but failed to raise the bar after that.
Read More: Joe Root surpasses Alastair Cook to become England’s top century-maker
Both players’ averages in wins and losses are a prime example of how much their sides depend on that. In victories, both average over 60, while in defeats, the number comes under 35.
Predicted period of Joe Root potentially toppling Sachin Tendulkar’s Test runs
There is a huge difference between the number of Tests both these players played in each year of their career. The most number of red-ball fixtures for Sachin in a year was 16 in 2002. It took him nine years to play over 10+ Tests in a year. Out of his 25-year career, there were only seven instances of Tendulkar featuring in over 10 five-day games in a single year.
The equation is quite different from Root’s. Apart from the ongoing 2025 and 2012 when he debuted in December, he played fewer than 10 Tests only in 2014, 2020 (Covid period), and 2023. In the current year, if he remains fit, he will play his 10th Test during the Boxing Day Ashes 2025-26.
As of the current schedule, Root will play nine Tests in 2026. In 2027, England will tour Bangladesh for two Tests and face Australia in the historic one-off Ashes Test. In the summer that year, they will play around six more Tests before Root gets around 11 Tests by the end of the 2028 home summer.
On that note, he is expected to take around 28-32 more Tests to surpass Tendulkar. His record of 892 Test runs at 35.68 down under is an indication of him dropping the pace during the upcoming Ashes 2025/26. Meanwhile, once he goes past 36, the batting, as it generally does, will decline a little.
These are all based on calculations. For that to be true, Root will have to hold his fitness and carry the same form. He will then have the perfect stage to toast the extraordinary achievement, potentially in the summer of 2028. The only shame is that Headingley, his home ground, won’t host the Ashes in that season.
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