Only a few thousand runs separate Joe Root from Sachin Tendulkar’s all-time Test runs record, and given the form that the England talisman has been in the last few years, there’s a high chance he’d break
that in the next few years. However, as Root has shattered one milestone after another, one thing continues to dissociate him from the legendary master blaster: runs in Australia.
Root has scored 909 runs in 29 Test innings down under, averaging 33.33, with nine fifties and no centuries. The ongoing Ashes 2025-26 was predicted to be different, but it began indifferently for him, with wickets at 0 (7) and 8 (11), both against Mitchell Starc, in the first Test in Perth. It has prompted former England captain Michael Vaughan, the top-scorer of their last series win here in 2010-11, to ask Root to learn from Tendulkar.
“For me, he is trying to own the channel outside off stump too much,” Vaughan wrote for The Telegraph. “He should just let anything outside his eye-line go. Be really patient. He is such a great player that Sachin Tendulkar is now the only man with more Test runs than him. Well, I’d like to see him take a leaf out of Sachin’s book from Sydney in 2002, when he made 241 not out without driving the ball. I am not saying be completely attritional, but just be patient. Wait for straight balls, or short balls to cut or pull. Let the bowlers come to you. Fancy-thirties win nothing in Australia. It’s all about hundreds.”
Tendulkar scored 1,809 runs in 38 innings in Australia at 53.21, with six tons and seven fifties.
‘Hard to fathom’: Vaughan on Zak Crawley
One man where numbers seem to hardly matter is opener Zak Crawley. He has one fifty-plus score in the last 37 innings, and got a pair of ducks in Perth, but continues to be backed.
“Zak Crawley remains a mystery,” Vaughan said. “He seems untouchable. He’s clearly a great team man, but no England fan can be surprised at what happened here. Before the game at Lilac Hill, he hadn’t played since September 6, a T20 for Kent. He missed three rounds of the Championship, a competition England keep him out of because he struggles against the seaming ball. Surely the only way to get better at that is to expose yourself to it. I repeat, his job is to play cricket. After 60 Tests, he averages 30-odd. It’s hard to fathom.”
