Michael Vaughan made an open challenge to BCCI about Joe Root breaking the records of Sachin Tendulkar for highest test runs and added that BCCI would never allow an England player to go on top of the list replacing an Indian.
Joe Root had a brilliant format in test cricket in recent days. He scored two hundred across two innings in the second test of the ongoing three-match test series on the Sri Lanka tour of England 2024.
The hundreds also saw Root surpass Alastair Cook to become England’s batter with the most centuries in test cricket. He has 34 centuries to his name, one more than that of a retired player cook.
He has over 12,000 test runs to his credit and he is close to surpassing the all-time record of India great Sachin Tendulkar.
Sachin tops the run scorers’ chart with 15921 runs in Test cricket. When asked during an interaction whether Root will be able to surpass Sachin, former England cricketer Michael Vaughan replied with a ‘Yes’.
“I think it’s three and a half thousand runs he trails by. He has three years. Unless his back snaps; he is the most enthusiastic lover of the game. I don’t think he is going to get away. He is no longer the captain and knows his game better than ever before. I’ll be amazed if he doesn’t. He has played beautifully,” said Vaughan.
Vaughan added that BCCI would never want an England player to go on top of list to replace an Indian.
“If Joe goes past Sachin, it will be the best thing that would ever happen to Test cricket, because there’s no way BCCI would want an England player at the top of the list. They’ll want an Indian at the top so that will secure Test match cricket because it’ll take forever for someone to get past him,” he added.
Legendary Australia WK-batter Adam Gilchrist was also present in the discussion and said, “Don’t know. How old is he? 33? He’s a youngster. I have no idea when his appetite is going to slow down.”
“He is clearly pretty hungry at the moment. But does he have the desire to go on? He is going to phase himself out of the white ball completely. Sorry, I will answer that question about Joe after the Ashes next year.”
