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IND vs ENG: For a long time, Sachin Tendulkar had dominated the cricketing world and had created some untouchable batting records. It has been ten years since he retired from the sport, and no one could break his records until Virat Kohli started performing brilliantly in international cricket. During the 2023 ODI World Cup match against England, Kohli broke Tendulkar's record and became the first batter to score 50 ODI hundreds. Kohli, who had been a huge fan of Tendulkar, was seen bowing down to him at the venue, taking his blessings, and carrying the sublime form. After almost 20 years, Tendulkar had still dominated the sport. And if Kohli had achieved it two years ago, what Joe Root has done now in the longest format, as Root is on the cusp of surpassing Tendulkar in this format.

Tendulkar is still currently leading the charts as he has scored 15921 runs after playing in 200 Test matches, and in the last few years, Root has gone ahead of his contemporaries. Root, who was once the least talked about batter of the Fab Four, has surpassed Steve Smith, Kane Williamson, and Virat Kohli and is inching closer towards breaking Tendulkar's Test record. After scoring 13543 runs, he is just 2378 away from breaking Tendulkar's record. Tendulkar, Till now, Tendulkar didn't react much to Root's record, but in an AMA session with Reddit, Sachin, who is the brand ambassador, responded to a query about Root just second to him.

When he was asked what his impression was of Joe Root, as he had already scored 13000 runs in the longest format and was just second to him, and had also played one match against him, he said, "To have gone past 13000 runs is a remarkable achievement, and he’s still going strong. When I saw him for the first time in Nagpur in 2012 during his debut Test, I told my teammates that they were watching the future captain of England. What impressed me most was the way he was able to assess the wicket and how he rotated the strike. I knew at that very moment that he would be a big player."

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When Joe Root earned Sachin Tendulkar's praise four years ago

Tendulkar had also talked about the brilliance of Root during the recently concluded five-match Test series. When the Men in Blue had won the Test match at Lord's way back in 2021, where the host suffered a batting collapse on the fifth day, Tendulkar revealed that Root was the only batter who could have helped the team bounce back. He admitted that England's Test team three years ago lacked the abilities of players like Alastair Cook, Michael Vaughan, Ian Bell, Kevin Pietersen, and Andrew Strauss. Obviously, the team did undergo lots of changes, but one thing was constant, and that was Joe Root.

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Root was in sublime form during the Test series against India, where he scored 537 runs at a staggering average of 67.12, which also includes three hundreds. He would next be seen in action during the Ashes Test series. The ex-skipper hasn't smashed a century in this format in Australia, but with him being in sublime form, this might surely change.