“He could potentially do that….”: Ponting backs Root to overtake Sachin’s Test cricket tally

New Delhi [India], August 15 (ANI): Former Australian skipper and batting legend Ricky Ponting backed England batter Joe Root to get past Indian legend Sachin Tendulkar’s Test run tally and also noted massive improvement in his conversion rate which has helped him “get better and better” over last two years or so.

Root recently scored his 12,000th Test run to become the seventh-highest run-scorer of all time and the 33-year-old has second-placed Ponting and Tendulkar’s overall record within sight.

The English right-hander is within 1,351 runs of Ponting (13,378) and less than 4,000 runs adrift of Tendulkar (15,921) and could cut into this even further during his side’s ICC World Test Championship series against Sri Lanka that commences later this month.

Ponting paid a compliment to Root when discussing his batting heroics on the most recent edition of The ICC Review and believes the world’s number one ranked Test batter can reach even greater heights should his current rich vein of form continue.

“He could potentially do that,” Ponting told host Sanjana Ganesan as quoted by ICC when asked if Root could overtake Tendulkar’s massive tally of runs in Test cricket.

“He is 33 years of age…(more than) 3000 runs behind. It depends how many Test matches they play, but if they are playing 10 to 14 Test matches a year and if you are scoring 800 to 1000 runs a year, then that sort of says he is only three or four years off getting there. So that will take him to 37 (years of age).”

“If his hunger’s still there, then there is every chance that he could do it,” he concluded his point.

Root scored his 32nd Test century against the West Indies last month in Nottingham in what was the fourth time he has reached triple figures since the start of last year.

While Root’s Test century tally is still well adrift of Tendulkar’s massive tally of 51, Ponting noted how much better the England batter had become in converting his good starts into big scores in recent times.

“He is someone that in the last couple of years has got better and better,” Ponting added.

“There has always talk around batters reaching their prime in their early 30s and he has certainly done that. It has been his conversion rates being the big thing. 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.”

“Almost every time he gets to 50 now, he goes on and makes a big hundred. So that has been the real turnaround for him,” he concluded.