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England’s Joe Root, who has created history by scoring 34 Test centuries, is the batsman who has scored the most centuries from England. His eyes are now on breaking Sachin Tendulkar’s record of 51 centuries and 15,921 runs in Tests. 33-year-old Root may leave Sachin behind, but he has left Virat Kohli far behind in terms of Test runs and centuries.
Till December 2019, Kohli was the player with the highest number of Test centuries among active players, when Root was not even in the top-5. But in the last 4 years, Root scored 17 centuries and reached the top among active players. Whereas Kohli could score only 2 centuries during this period.
From 4 points in the story, we will know what different Root did in the last 4 years, due to which he became the best in Test. He left behind not only Kohli but also modern day greats like Australia’s Steve Smith and New Zealand’s Kane Williamson. Before analyzing, let’s see the statistics of Kohli and Root in all three formats…
1. Roots focus on a single format
Joe Root made his Test debut against India on 13 December 2012. Within a month he also made his ODI and T-20 debut. Till 2018, Root continued playing all three formats, but from May 2019, the management dropped him from T-20.
Root did not get many opportunities even in ODIs, but he never missed Tests. Since 2019, England has played 69 Tests, Root was a part of 68 of them, due to injury he could not play a match. Whereas in these 6 years, Root could play only 50 ODIs and 4 T20s. England played 163 limited overs matches during this period.
On the other hand, Virat has been focusing on all three formats since his debut. Since 2019, India played 47 Tests, Virat took maximum part in 37 of them in the team. India played 105 ODIs and here too Virat took maximum part in 79 of the team. He even played in 60 of India’s 125 T20 matches. Suryakumar Yadav, who plays only T-20 cricket, could also play only 71 matches during this period.
The difference is clear, due to playing the same format, Root is able to concentrate all his attention on scoring runs and centuries in Tests. On the other hand, Virat was contributing for the team in all three formats. Kohli has now retired from T20, the number of ODI matches has also reduced, so he has a golden opportunity to reach his peak in Tests.
2. England plays more Tests in a year than India
England plays the most matches among the 12 Test playing countries. The team played 10 tests this year and they have to play 7 more tests, i.e. 17 tests in 2024. Since 2019, England has played 69 Tests and Australia has played 49 Tests. Whereas India could play only 47 tests.
Due to playing more Tests, 33-year-old Root played 145 matches in his 11-year career. Due to which he got more chances to score runs in Tests. Whereas 35 year old Virat could play only 113 tests in his 13 year career. England plays 12 to 18 Tests every year, whereas India plays only 8 to 12 Tests. The figures have certainly increased in the last few years, but England’s parity is still far away.
3. Baseball pitches supported Root
In May 2022, New Zealand’s Brendon McCullum became the coach of the England Test team. Ben Stokes became the captain of England after Root left the captaincy. Since then, England adopted the approach of attacking batting, but for this the team also changed its home pitches. England also named it baseball. Till 2022, there was grass on the pitch in England, fast bowlers were helped and it was difficult to score runs due to swing.
After the arrival of baseball, every pitch in England became flat, scoring runs became easy and taking wickets was very difficult. Root took advantage of this and scored 7 centuries in 18 tests at home, whereas he could score only 2 centuries in 10 tests abroad. After baseball, Root is scoring 2 centuries in every 5 tests in England. Earlier, he had to play 8 tests to score 2 centuries.
On the other hand, India started changing its pitches right from the England series in February 2021. In the first match, batting was easy for the first 2-3 days, spin was helpful in the last 2 days. But for the last 4 years, the ball starts spinning from the first day of the match, due to which it has become very difficult to score runs. Due to this, not only Virat but also batsmen from all over the world are yearning to score runs in India.
In the last 3 years, Virat could score only one century at home. During this period, the remaining 87 players together could only score 19 centuries in 14 Tests. In these also, foreign players could score only 6 centuries. Whereas from 2011 to 2021, 92 centuries were scored in 48 Tests in India. That is, earlier where about 4 centuries were scored in every 2 Tests, now only 3 centuries are scored in every 2 Tests. However, one thing is certain, Virat could score only one century abroad in the last 3 years.
Root has 21 centuries to his name in England, he scored 9 centuries in India, Sri Lanka, South Africa and New Zealand. But could not score a single century in Australia, Bangladesh, Pakistan and UAE. On the other hand, Virat has scored a century in every country where he played cricket except Bangladesh. He has 6 centuries to his name in Australia, while he has 5 centuries in England, South Africa and New Zealand. That means, if domestic pitches are not available then it is difficult for Root to reach 40 Test century.
4. Virat remained out of form for a long time
Virat Kohli scored his 27th Test century against Bangladesh on 23 November 2019. He scored a lot of runs in 2019, but he was out of form from 2020 onwards. Centuries stopped coming in all three formats, Virat was definitely scoring runs in ODI and T-20, but his runs in Tests also stopped.
For 3 years and 3 months, Virat could score only 993 runs in 22 Tests at an average of 26.13. In these he scored 6 fifties, which means Virat’s form was clearly missing. Not only was it difficult to score runs in India, Virat was also facing difficulties abroad. Then in March 2023, he scored the 28th century of his Test career against Australia, from here he went to West Indies and also scored a century.
Virat started scoring runs and centuries in all three formats from September 2022. For the next 6 months, India will play 5 Tests at home and 5 in Australia. Kohli has 20 centuries to his name at both the places, so he will rarely get a golden opportunity like this to attain his peak form.
When Virat was out of form, Root made it a habit to score runs and centuries in Tests. Since December 2019, he has scored more than 5000 runs in 57 tests. Which includes 17 Century and 19 Fifty. His average was also close to 55, which is the highest among active players playing 20 plus Tests.
Root reached the top in test figures of Fab-4
On August 31, 2014, New Zealand legend Martin Crowe identified the top-4 players and called them Fab-4. Along with Joe Root and Virat Kohli, New Zealand’s Kane Williamson and Australia’s Steve Smith were also included. Crowe had then said that all four would be great batsmen of cricket in the next decade and would captain their respective teams. Same thing happened.
There is no one better than Virat in Fab-4’s ODI and T-20 statistics. But in Tests, sometimes Smith, sometimes Virat, sometimes Williamson and now Root is ahead. Till December 2019, Virat had scored the maximum of 27 Test centuries. At that time Smith had 26 centuries, Williamson had 21 and Root had only 17 centuries.
The figures are as of December 2019.
In the last 4 years, only Smith could score 6 and Virat could score 2 Test centuries. But during this period, Williamson scored 11 centuries and Root scored 17 centuries. Due to which Root not only went ahead of Virat but also Smith and Williamson in the test. However, no one proved better than Virat in Test captaincy.
*Graphics- Ankit Pathak.
