Joe Root Becomes England’s Leading ODI Run-Scorer

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Joe Root Playing for England

It has been an extraordinary few years for Joe Root, building on what was already a hugely impressive body of work. He long ago established himself as one of England’s greatest batsmen but now has to be considered the best all-formats runscorer his nation has ever produced. He has set record after record, and recently became England’s first player to reach 13,000 Test runs.

He went past Alastair Cook last year, the former opener retiring from Test cricket with 12,472 runs to his name. That was the most by any English player and the sixth most overall. Root brought the 13,000 up against Zimbabwe and it is only a matter of time before he moves above Rahul Dravid, Jacques Kallis and Ricky Ponting to become the second-highest Test runscorer ever. 373 runs will take him there, but he will need another 2,543 after that to surpass Sachin Tendulkar.

Image credit: Ballacorkish, flickr.

Masterclass Against the West Indies Takes Root to Milestone

However, away from red-ball cricket, Root has been making history in the 50-over version of the game. On the 1st of June, he played a world-class innings against the West Indies, scoring 166 not out having come to the crease when his side had just one run on the board and they quickly slumped to 2/2. He steadied the ship with Yorkshire teammate Harry Brook but wickets continued to fall after that partnership and at 133/5 England looked in big trouble.

However, England’s former Test captain did what he has been doing for well over a decade now and continued accumulating runs quickly without ever doing anything too risky or outrageous. It was a sublime innings that showed class and maturity and was perfectly paced. He reached triple figures from 98 balls but then scored his next 50 from just 31 to take the game away from the tourists despite relatively minimal support from his teammates.

His sparkling 166 not out was his 18th ODI century but his highest score in the format and came from just 139 balls. It helped his side wrap up the win but it also saw him become the first player to score 7,000 runs for Egland in this format of the game, yet more history for Root.

Moves Past Morgan

Following Root’s sublime knock, former England bowler Steve Finn said that the Sheffield native was on a “constant journey of ticking everything off before him” and that he was “head and shoulders above the rest”. Finn called it right on both counts and as well as being the first player to score 7,000 ODI runs for England, the brilliant effort also moved Root ahead of Eoin Morgan.

England Player ODI Innings ODI Runs
Joe Root 169 7082
Eoin Morgan 207 6957
Ian Bell 157 5416
Jos Buttler 163 5233
Paul Collingwood 181 5092

Morgan, who captained England to World Cup success in 2019, actually scored 7,701 runs in his ODI career. However, 744 of those came for Ireland, with 6,957 coming for his adopted nation. Root now has 7,082 so is out in front for England when it comes to scoring both Test runs and those in the 50-over format.

But Lags Behind One Day GOATS

Finn was right to say that Root is a long way ahead of his English competition when it comes to batting in One Day Internationals. Though his lead over his former skipper Morgan is slender, he has played far fewer matches – 179 to Morgan’s 225. He outperforms the Dubliner 18 to 13 when it comes to centuries too, whilst his amazing average of 49.18 is just under 10 runs better than Morgan’s.

Ian Bell is third for England but is way back on 5,416 runs, whilst Jos Buttler is the best of the rest when it comes to active players. Buttler boasts 5,233 runs following the second match of the series against the West Indies at an average of 38.76, although he scores his runs significantly quicker than Root (115.13 versus 87.59, per 100 balls faced).

However, whilst Root may have Tendulkar in his sights in terms of the record for most Test runs, it is safe to say that he will not be reaching the top of the tree in terms of One Day International runs. The Little Master is the man to beat there but Sachin scored a scarcely believable 18,426 runs in this format.

That means he is more than 11,000 runs ahead of Root. In fact, Tendulkar is over 4,000 ahead of the player who is second on the list, with Sri Lankan supremo Kumar Sangakkara next on 14,234 (including runs for Asia and an ICC team). Tendulkar’s numbers, below, really are astonishing.

  • Played 463 matches between 1989 and 2012, batting 452 times
  • 49 ODI centuries and 96 half-centuries
  • Top score of 200 not out

Those numbers clearly put Root’s in the shade and, in fact, the Englishman will need to score more than another 2,000 runs even to make the top 20 all-time ODI run-getters. That said, England do not play anywhere near as many ODIs as many other nations, so it is not really a fair comparison.

The Yorkshireman’s 179 matches is a lot by English standards but pales into insignificance next to the 400+ games played by four of the top six runscorers in the format. Indeed, of the players with more runs than England’s top dog, only one has played fewer ODIs. Kane Williamson has scored 7,235 from 173 games, whilst South African Hashim Mala also compares well with 8,113 from 181 ODIs.

England’s star will turn 35 at the end of the year and whilst some of the game’s best batters have managed to play on until their very late 30s, or even beyond, not least Tendulkar himself, quite how long Root has left remains to be seen. His hunger for runs very clearly remains and his ODI skipper, Brook, said that “he is only getting better with age”.

The stats pretty much back that up too, and Root has shown a brilliant ability to adapt his game over the years. He has incorporated newer shots like the ramp and frequently reverse sweeps the ball. But has also shown he can modify and tweak his game, for example in the way he now plays the reverse much closer to the stumps, rather than out in front of his body. Long may it continue!