Watching Sachin Tendulkar play his final Test innings in Mumbai, I turned to a friend and said confidently, “No one will ever break his aggregate record because no one can score 15,000-plus runs given the international schedule and franchise cricket, nor play 200 Tests.” Twelve years later, it appears I may have been wrong on one count, possibly both. One of Tendulkar’s contemporaries, England’s Joe Root, needs 1,644 runs to overtake him. He was younger than Tendulkar was at the 14,000-run mark.

Root turns 36 in December and might know that Tendulkar played 34 Tests after turning 37 (scoring 2,474 runs). Root will not need as many to overtake the Indian. An interesting catch-me-if-you-can is guaranteed between the greatest batters their respective countries have produced.

Longevity is an important measure of greatness. It speaks to skill, form, fitness, consistency, motivation, adaptability, goal-setting, and to a lesser degree, luck. I thought Tendulkar would struggle a few years after an elbow surgery had made it difficult for him to lift even a cup of tea, leave alone a cricket bat. Yet he had an amazingly productive run thereafter, digging deep into his reserves as a player who was the among the best the world had ever seen. Motivation, like faith, can move mountains.

Sachin Tendulkar acknowledges the crowd as he walks back after getting out for 74 runs during his last and 200th Test match
| Photo Credit:
K.R. Deepak

Athletes slow down as they grow older, it’s a natural process. The power of the mind might reduce the speed of decline and extend a career. Then the unquantifiables take over. Motivation, mainly, but also the stomach for constant physical punishment, and keenness to break records and place your achievements beyond the reach of a generation or two at least.

Pressures of captaincy

Not surprisingly, captaincy can have a negative effect. Tendulkar didn’t enjoy it, although he had the best batter in the world — himself — in the team. “I even contemplated moving away from the sport completely,” said Tendulkar of his struggles with captaincy.

Root has said he had “an unhealthy relationship” with captaincy. Ben Stokes took over and briefly changed English cricket with the ‘Bazball’ style of attacking cricket he had developed with coach Brendon McCullum. Root loved batting in the new style, exhibiting strokes that had been dormant. After Stokes announced his retirement, Root was given the holding job while Harry Brook served his apprenticeship, and this time he relished the job. Perhaps he might yet give us the adult version of Bazball whether he leads or not.

As his career was winding down, Tendulkar had a couple of goals — playing 200 Tests, the 200th and final at home in Mumbai, and scoring a century of international centuries. Halfway through his career, Sunil Gavaskar had suggested that anything fewer than 15,000 Test runs for a man of Tendulkar’s talent would count as a failure, although he phrased it more gently. Records and figures are an inherent part of Indian cricket, but not so deeply ingrained in the English psyche.

Root’s admiration for Tendulkar is genuine. He told The Athletic this year, “It’s remarkable what Sachin Tendulkar achieved in the game. You have to believe me when I say that to even be in the conversation with him is enough for me. The guy made his Test debut before I was born and played in my Test debut! His longevity in itself is remarkable…”

When Root overtook Ricky Ponting (13,378) to become the second highest run-getter in Tests, Tendulkar said, “To have gone past 13,000 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.”

“You always want to represent your country in the best possible light. (We must) be really good role models and good human beings.” That might have been something Tendulkar said (and probably did in different ways), but it is Root speaking on his return to captaincy. The crown, if it does pass, will not find a more honourable man to wear it.

England’s post-Bazball era got off to an encouraging start on a dominant Day 1 of the first Test against Pakistan, with pacers Ollie Robinson and Josh Tongue each taking five wickets to rip through the tourists’ batting lineup at Headingley.

After Pakistan collapsed from 117-3 to 171 all out, England made inroads in the evening session Thursday to reach the close on 112-2 and was trailing by just 59 runs.

It could hardly have gone any better for Joe Root, who was beginning his second stint as captain following the retirement of Ben Stokes and was there at stumps on 37 not out alongside Jordan Cox (23 not out) after winning the toss under an overcast sky.

Off the first ball of the three-match series, Robinson pinned Azan Awais with a delivery that nipped back from around the wicket. In his third over, Robinson went over the wicket and trapped Shan Masood (5) trying to drive and Pakistan was 6-2.

Following a two-hour rain delay and a 91-run partnership for the third wicket between Imam-ul-Haq (42) and Abdullah Shafique (61), Robinson and Tongue ran through the Pakistan batters and had figures of 5-51 and 5-46, respectively.

Asked which of the bowlers was keeping the match ball, Tongue revealed after the close of play that it was being shared — literally.

“The groundsman has kindly split the ball in half so I’m sure I’ll be able to get that mounted somewhere at home,” said Tongue, who claimed his fourth five-wicket haul in his 13th Test. “It’s crazy — it’s the first time I’ve seen that happen.”

Robinson’s dramatic return

For Robinson, it was another dramatic return. He was playing his first Test since June at Lord’s, where he took a match-winning 7-77 against New Zealand in his first Test in two years. A knee injury and doubts about his fitness prevented his return in that series that England lost 2-1, leading to the retirement of Stokes and the firing of Brendon McCullum as Test coach.

Pakistan, with just two wins in its last seven Tests and missing captain Babar Azam (finger injury), provided ideal opponents for the start of England’s latest reset and lost its last five wickets for 21 runs in 22 balls.

“They bowled very well, we have to give credit to the England bowlers. They were decent with their length and they were hitting the right spots,” Imam said.

“Obviously we have to work hard now but I always believe that it’s a long game… things change very quickly. Get two wickets and the game’s going to change.”

Root in good form

In England’s reply, Mohammad Abbas trapped Ben Duckett for 15 and Emilio Gay departed for 33, nicking Mohammad Ali to second slip, but Root and Cox settled the home side.

Root, in particular, looked in prime form and has already hit six fours in his 53-ball knock early in his chase for a 42nd Test century.

Pakistan, which hasn’t won a Test series in England since 1996, had Salman Agha deputising as skipper with Babar not recovering from a finger injury.

Dan Lawrence — a batter but also a spin option — was in at No. 6 for England in his first Test in two years.

Robinson makes history with first-ball wicket

According to the BBC, it is the first time a team has taken a wicket off the first ball of a Test series in England, which has been hosting matches since 1880.

It has only previously happened 11 times in the history of Test cricket. Jimmy Anderson was the other English player to do it, when he removed Dean Elgar in a series in South Africa in 2019-20.

The midnight curfew imposed on the England men’s cricket team has been scrapped under newly appointed captain Joe Root.

The restriction was put in place by England managing director Rob Key after controversial late-night incidents on the winter tours of New Zealand and Australia.

Former test captain Ben Stokes was out past the curfew following a match against New Zealand in June, leading to his temporary suspension and then sudden retirement from test cricket — a chain of events that has sparked the return of Root for a second spell as skipper.

The latest new era for English cricket begins next week with a three-match test series against Pakistan, and Root told the Sky Sports Cricket Podcast: “There’s not going to be a curfew.

“I don’t think this needs to be a big deal, to be honest,” he said. “My view on curfews is I don’t think they work, and if you want guys to take responsibility on the field they’ve got to be able to feel they can be grown adults off it and make good strong decisions off it.

“That’s for us as a team to manage well, and self-police well, for me and Flem (Stephen Fleming) to manage well in many ways. But ultimately you’re grown adults, you know what it takes to play for England, you know what your responsibilities are off the field and we need to make sure we don’t find ourselves with any little situations off the field.”

Root wants the team to “create a good strong culture when you know when the right time is to celebrate and enjoy a win or to have a sensible beer or whatever, but remember you’re playing for England.”

New Zealand was slowly but surely closing in on winning The Oval test after reducing England to 182-5 on Saturday (June 20, 2026) in a doubtful fourth-innings chase of 463.

England interim captain Joe Root was 75 not out at stumps on day four with debutant Jordan Cox beside him and yet to get off the mark.

But even with Root, test cricket’s second highest run-scorer in the middle, few gave England a chance of pulling off a miracle comeback.

England came out after tea, already three wickets down for 54, to a spectator with a trumpet blowing the tune to “The Great Escape,” the 1963 Steve McQueen war epic.

And for a compelling 90 minutes England supporters could dream as Root and Harry Brook decided to go down swinging.

They brought up 50 together off 42 balls. New Zealand got the ball changed but Brook pulled Nathan Smith for six over square leg.

Brook got another Oval ovation after reaching his fastest test fifty, off 33 balls, and the crowd were back on their feet for Root’s fifty off 81 balls.

But the batters’ bravado was dampened by Matt Henry.

New Zealand’s senior seamer, who took five wickets in the first innings including Root and Brook, returned to produce a nagging line and length that got both batters out lbw. But both umpire’s decisions were overturned because Root and Brook got subtle inside edges onto their pads.

But Henry ultimately trumped the great escapes and broke the partnership of 97 when he got Brook deflecting a block to first slip on 58 off 54 balls.

Without his inspiration, Root dug in with debutant James Rew and they looked like reaching stumps together until Kyle Jamieson hit Rew in the groin nine minutes from the day’s end. New Zealand’s speculative review turned up aces with Rew lbw to a bail trimmer on 15.

England was 54-3 against New Zealand in an unlikely fourth-innings chase of 463 at tea on day four of The Oval test on Saturday (June 20, 2026).

New Zealand was bowled out for 362, England scooping up the last four wickets in 6.1 overs after lunch.

That set England 463 to win the test and clinch the series with a match to spare; a total far above the world record chase of 418 by West Indies against Australia at St. John’s in 2003 and way above England’s best chase of 378 against India in Birmingham in 2022.

The alternative was to bat out four-plus sessions for a draw.

Neither scenario looked likely as New Zealand’s pace attack made immediate inroads under cloud cover.

Kyle Jamieson removed Emilio Gay and his replacement Jacob Bethell in the fourth over.

Gay on 11 flicked straight to midwicket into the hands of Rachin Ravindra, who was mobbed by his teammates after dropping three sitters in the series, including one in the first innings. Bethell went for a four-ball duck when he missed Jamieson and was plumb on the front pad.

Ben Duckett survived an umpire’s call on a Jamieson delivery that would have clipped leg stump, but he added only four more runs when he was out to a poor shot on 9 just 15 minutes before tea. Duckett toe-ended a pull at Will O’Rourke straight to Matt Henry at mid-on.

Captain Joe Root was on 24 with vice captain Harry Brook on 9 at the break.

Root was almost gone before he scored when an edge off Jamieson fell just short of second slip. His second run brought up his 14,000th in tests, only the second man to the milestone after Sachin Tendulkar.

Jamieson had 2-10 from five overs and O’Rourke had 1-16.

How many agencies does it take to destroy Test cricket? If the current Ashes series is indication, it would involve the local administrators, the International Cricket Council, and the players themselves. Not since the 19th century have two Tests in a series ended within two days. The track for the first Test in Perth was adjudged “very good” by the ICC while Melbourne’s was declared “unsatisfactory.”

Home wins have, in the points system of the World Test Championship — points as a percentage of the total available — become so important that wickets are prepared unabashedly for home bowlers. Still, Australia took a 3-0 lead within 11 days without their best attack of Pat Cummins, Josh Hazlewood, Mitchell Starc and Nathan Lyon all playing together.

England won in Melbourne, but something important was missed. The wicket improved as the match progressed; however, neither team had the batters with the defence to take the match into the fourth or fifth day. The exception, England’s Joe Root, slightly off balance followed the ball and edged in the first innings, while in the second the DRS left it to the ‘umpire’s call’ for leg before.

That England made the highest total of the match to win suggested it wasn’t the 10mm grass on the wicket that was solely responsible for the result. Melbourne had more grass on it for the 2021-22 Ashes Test (11mm), as well as the New Zealand Test of 2019-20 (12mm). Those matches took three and four days respectively.

The 90,000-plus fans in the stadium seemed less inclined to blame the pitch, cheering wildly when opener Ben Duckett played forward defence in the midst of a sword-fight of an innings as England approached a win. At least some of them might have craved a defensive shot with the same keenness with which others screamed for a six.

Not an easy task

The pitch could not have been easy; but Test cricket was never meant to be easy. It is a test as much of technique and temperament as of spirit and the passion to stick it out. In a sense, the batters were playing for Test cricket itself besides their respective teams. Two-day Tests are nearly as ridiculous as two-Test series, although teams often prefer the latter thanks to the points system.

Flaws in the WTC system — and the Ashes has highlighted them — have been pointed out before. ‘Context’, that magic word, cannot be the excuse for teams not playing every other or indeed the same number of matches. Two fundamental changes suggest themselves.

One, split the 12 Test-playing teams into two divisions with the odd-ranked teams in one and the even-ranked in the other. This will eliminate the need for promotions and demotions or one strong group carrying the weak group. The god of telecasts will be propitiated too. If the two-Test series goes, it might be worth considering a three-year cycle rather than the current two.

Compromises with franchise cricket will have to be made. Recently South Africa’s Tabraiz Shamsi took his cricket board to court for denying a No Objection Certificate to play a T20 league abroad. He won the case, to give other boards something to think about.

The CEO of Cricket Australia who was suggesting recently that only Australia, India and England should play Test cricket is now talking about balancing “commercial imperatives and performance” after the Melbourne Test. Losing ten million dollars over a two-day Test can do that to an administrator.

More pertinently, Aussie great Greg Chappell wrote in ESPNcricinfo, “Two Tests failed to reach day three not due to superior skill but a glaring absence of desire. Batters slashed wildly, abandoning technique for bravado, as if playing their ‘natural game’ excused capitulation. They let down predecessors who bled for this rivalry; they shortchanged fans who braved the holiday heat; they betrayed their own generation by forsaking cricket’s core tenets – playing each ball on merit, scrapping for every run, enduring bruises for the greater good. I cannot believe any player left the field thinking they had given their all over those paltry sessions.”

In a match where the highest score was 46, nearly every dismissal diminished the game. Send not to know for whom the bell tolls. It tolls for Test cricket.

Veteran England batsman Joe Root has said it would be “silly” to change England’s management team after losing the Ashes, with players “absolutely committed” to the current set-up.

England meekly surrendered the famous urn after just 11 days of play with back-to-back eight-wicket defeats in Perth and Brisbane and an 82-run loss at Adelaide.

Their capitulation was compounded by criticism of their low-key preparations and allegations of excessive drinking during a mid-series beach break in Noosa.

The team restored some pride with a frantic four-wicket win in Melbourne, snapping an 18-match winless streak on Australian soil.

It relieved pressure on coach Brendon McCullum, skipper Ben Stokes and cricket chief Rob Key, who have all indicated they want to stay in their roles.

“In terms of the playing group, we’re absolutely committed to the management,” Root, England’s all-time leading Test run-scorer and a former captain, told English media in Melbourne.

“Yes, we can be better and there are certain areas that we’ll continue to keep working at, but the management work extremely hard.

“They might do things in a slightly different way, but I think we’ve made great strides as a group and a big reason for it is because of the guys we have behind us.”

Management’s case to stay on would be strengthened by another win in the fifth Test in Sydney starting Sunday.

Root was captain on England’s last tour of Australia in 2021-22 when they were crushed 4-0, costing coach Chris Silverwood and cricket director Ashley Giles their jobs.

But Root said a lot of progress had been made since under the current regime.

“You look at the group of players we’ve got and you look at the guys that were involved in the team when I was captain, four years ago, and you look at their records individually, and every single one of them has improved as a player,” he said.

“This team has improved. I think it would be silly (to consider change) for the amount of hard work and things that have been done.”

Victory in Melbourne was Root’s first in Australia in more than a decade of trying and he said it “would be better if we win next week as well”.

“If we can build on it and do it again next time it’s momentum in the right direction for the next tour here (in 2029-30),” he added.