With Joe Root scoring yet another sensational century in Tests, the debate over who is the best among the fab four is doing the rounds once again. The other three members of this club are Virat Kohli, Steve Smith and Kane Williamson.
Not very long, Root was seen as the weakest member of the club. There were also suggestions from several quarters to replace Root with Babar Azam in the club. Things, however, have changed drastically in the last couple of years or so.
While the likes of Kohli, Smith and Williamson have struggled with their consistency, Root has been in red-hot form throughout. Everything that he is touching at the moment is turning into gold. There is absolutely no stopping the England star at the moment.
On Sunday (June 5), he became the first among the fab four to breach the 10,000-run mark in Test cricket. Root achieved the feat during his incredible match-winning century against New Zealand at the Lord’s.
Root also became the joint youngest player to score 10,000 runs in the longest format of the game. The right-handed batsman scored a sublime innings of 115 not out as England recovered from 69 for 4 to chase down 277 and take the lead in the series.
Is Joe Root the best among fab four?
With Joe Root showing very little signs of slowing down in Tests, several pundits and fans have started calling him the best among the fab four. And an incredible piece of statistics more or less shows that Root is indeed well ahead of the other three, at least on the basis of his form in last couple of years.
On January 13 last year, the run tally among the fab four was almost same with Root leading the race by less than 400 runs. While Root had scored 7823 runs, Kohli, Smith and Williamson had scored 7449, 7318 and 7115 runs respectively.
In terms of century, Root was well behind in the list. While Kohli and Smith were leading the race with 27 centuries each and followed by Williamson’s 24 tons, Root had scored only 17.
But since then, it has been almost a one-way traffic with Root thoroughly dominating the race. While Kohli, Smith and Williamson have not managed to score a single century since January 13 last year, Root has scored an incredible 9 tons. Not only that, he is now the leading run-scorer among the fab four.
While Smith (8010) and Kohli (8043) have merely touched the 8000-run mark and Williamson (7289) has not even managed that, Root has touched the 10000-run mark. Currently on 10,015 runs, he is in 14th position in terms of overall Test aggregate, but he is on top among active players.