"Tendulkar's record is very achievable"- Former Australian skipper makes a bold prediction about Joe Root
The new era under the captaincy of Ben Stokes and the coaching of Brendon McCullum has started with a win. England won their first test match against New Zealand by five wickets at Lord's. With this win, the English team has taken a 1-0 lead in the three match series.
The hero of the match was Joe Root, who once again stood solid in the chase and returned unbeaten with a century to win the game for his team. The former skipper scored 115* in the chase and brought up his 26th Test ton to take England out of misery and seal the deal for his team.
With this heroic knock, he also became only the second English player to enter the elite club of 10,000 test runs. He is also the joint-second youngest player to do so and equalled the record of his fellow countryman, Alastair Cook.
This was also only the first century for Root in the fourth innings. Many ex-cricketers and cricket pundits heaped praise on Root. Former Australia skipper Mark Taylor lauded the former English skipper and went on to say that he can possibly break Sachin Tendulkar's record of 15,921 runs.
During a discussion on Star Sports, Taylor said, "Root has minimum five years left in him, so I think Tendulkar's record is very achievable. He is in the prime of his career, so there is 15,000 runs-plus for him if he stays healthy."
On the other hand, former England skipper Naseer Hussain also lauded Root and said that his technique and rhythm are always fluent and that there are still a lot of runs left in him. He added that getting 10,000 runs is a special occasion and that the 31-year-old deserved it.
Root became the fastest English player to do so and it took 218 innings to reach this milestone. On the other hand, Cook took 229 innings to reach 10,000 runs.