Joe Root went past Ricky Ponting and is now second on the highest run getters list, 2512 runs short of Sachin Tendulkar. But he has said that he will not focus on beating Tendulkar’s Test run-scoring record during the rest of his career. He now has 13,409 Test runs and surpassed Ponting with his 120th run in England’s first innings. Earlier in the knock he also went past Rahul Dravid and Jacques Kallis. This is his 157th Test, Tendulkar played 200 Tests.
Root made his debut in a Test in Nagpur in 2012 when Tendulkar played for India and Root looked back at that series and experience of playing with the Indian legend.
“It was huge. He made his Test debut before I was born. And to be playing on the same ground as him to get a chance to play against him was incredibly cool. Someone you grew up watching, admiring, and trying to learn from him – to be on the same field watching him go about through that whole series. To get the reception he would get when India would lose a wicket was bizarre. It was quite a memorable experience, I will never forget to play that series with him,” Root told BBC Sport.
Is he thinking about breaking Tendulkar’s record? “It’s not something I would focus on. Those sort of things should look after themselves. The focus has to be about winning games, setting them up if we’re earlier on in the Test match and if we need to chase something down, figuring out how to play that situation well.
“It might sound a little bit boring and methodical, but ultimately that’s what I need to do to help England win and that’s why we play the game.
“It was a great day for batting first and foremost. It was really quite cool to experience the whole ground standing like that for you is a really nice feeling. At the same time you have a job to do – a huge moment within a big series. That’s ultimately what you play for – set games up or chase scores to get teams across the line. It [crowd’s reaction] was obviously very touching but there is a bigger fish to fry,” Root said.
Root also spoke about going past Ponting. “I saw Ricky Ponting this morning. Ricky’s someone that I grew up admiring, watching, trying to emulate, copy in the garden and at my local club – trying to play the pull shot that he’s obviously world famous for. So even just to be spoken about in the same sentence as those guys [Ponting and Tendulkar], the people that you grew up wanting to emulate and pretending to be is pretty cool.”
