IMAGE: England's Joe Root is overall the seventh highest run-scorer in Tests with 12,027 runs in 143 Tests. Photograph: Andrew Couldridge/Reuters
Former Australian captain Ricky Ponting reckoned that Joe Root could surpass batting legend Sachin Tendulkar's tally of runs in Test cricket, provided the England batting mainstay stays 'hungry' and keeps scoring at a consistent rate for the next four years.
Root became only the seventh batter in the history of the conventional format to cross the 12,000-run mark -- a feat he achieved recently during the Edgbaston Test against the West Indies.
With 12,027 runs in 143 Tests at 50.11 with 32 centuries and 63 fifties so far, Root is also overall the seventh highest run-scorer in Tests and could overtake Sri Lanka's Kumar Sangakkara (12,400 runs) and his former teammate Alastair Cook (12,472) soon.
Tendulkar leads the table with 15921 runs from 200 Tests.
Ponting, who sits second behind Tendulkar in the list with 13,378 runs from 168 Tests, told The ICC Review: "He (Root)
could potentially do that. He is 33 years of age…(more than) 3000 runs behind."
"It depends how many Test matches they play, but if they're playing 10 to 14 Test matches a year and if you're scoring 800 to 1,000 runs a year, then that sort of says he's only three or four years off getting there. So that'll take him to 37 (years of age)," said the legendary Australian.
Ponting said Root will need to remain hungry for runs and the England batter has got the age on his side to aim for the Test record.
"If his hunger's still there, then there's every chance that he could do it. He is someone that in the last couple of years has got better and better," Ponting said.
"There's always talk around batters reaching their prime in their early 30s and he's certainly done that. It's been his conversion rates being the big thing," he said.
Ponting said Root seemed to have overcome his inability to convert half-centuries into big scores.
"Four or five years ago, he was making a lot of 50s and struggling to go on and make hundreds and he's gone the other way recently," Ponting said.
"Almost every time he gets to 50 now, he goes on and makes a big hundred. So that's been the real turnaround for him," he added.