5 current batsmen who could join the 10000-run club in Tests
Alastair Cook became the youngest batsman to reach the 10000-run mark in Tests (in terms of age) reaching the milestone aged 31 years and 158 days beating the record that was previously held by the Indian batting legend Sachin Tendulkar, who had crossed the milestone aged 31 years and 326 days back in 2005. With the age still on his side, many have started backing the English Test captain to beat Tendulkar’s record for the most number of runs in Test matches as well, as he is just 5879 runs away from 15921 Test runs – which is Tendulkar’s aggregate.
While Cook crossing the 10000-run mark was inevitable given the pace at which he had been scoring runs over the past 5 years and his relatively young age, there are quite a few batsmen in the international circuit who are also in line to cross the aforementioned milestone if they continue to play the way they have been in recent times and stay injury-free. Here, in this piece, we bring to you 5 such names and talk about the possibility of them getting to 10000 runs in Tests.
1. Younis Khan
Just like the incumbent English captain, another man who is on the verge of getting into the 10000-run club is former the Pakistan captain, Younis Khan. Younis has been in some prolific form over the past two years, especially in Test matches, and has been one of the lynchpins in the Pakistani Test team. Younis’ purple patch, or so to speak, began way back in 2004 and has continued since, as, over the past 12 years, his Test average has fallen below 50 only once – in 2012.
Over the past three years, i.e. in 2013, 2014 and 2015, Younis has scored 698, 1064, and 789 runs respectively, averaging 53.69, 66.50, and 60.69 respectively. The Pakistani veteran now has a total of 9116 runs to his name from 104 Test matches and is just 884 runs away from the 10000-run mark. He is already Pakistan’s most prolific run aggregator in Tests having surpassed Javed Miandad’s tally of 8,832 runs in October last year.
Although he is 38 years old, looking at his current form and the desire to play Test match cricket, it doesn’t seem like he has plans to retire anytime soon. Hence, if he continues to play for at least two more years, we might see a Pakistani entering into the 10000-run club in Tests for the first time.