Former England cricket team captain Joe Root played a match-winning innings of 115 not out against New Zealand at Lord’s on Sunday, 5 May 2022. During this he completed his 10,000 test runs. He is the 14th batsman in the world and the second England batsman to score 10,000 Test runs. However, Joe Root still has a long way to go if he wants to break Sachin Tendulkar’s all-time record of 15,921 Test runs.
By the way, the first ten thousand runs in Test cricket was touched by Sunil Gavaskar of India. Sunil Gavaskar scored 10,122 Test runs including 34 centuries in a career spanning 125 Test matches. Sunil Gavaskar had told The Indian Express about the ‘magical’ moment. Sunil Gavaskar had described touching the figure of 10,000 Test runs as climbing Mount Everest.
Sunil Gavaskar had said, ‘Once you reach that 10,000 it is absolutely magical. ‘Magical’ because it hadn’t been done before. Even 9,000 were not done before and I did it. But 9,000 is a four-digit number. 10,000 is a five-digit number, so it was almost like climbing Mount Everest for the first time.’
Sunil Gavaskar achieved the feat of 10,000 Test runs in 1987. The ‘Little Master’ had scored 63 runs in that match against Pakistan. He completed 10,000 test runs as soon as he took 58 runs. The game was then halted for a while, as spectators had entered the field to congratulate him. You can watch the video of that incident below.
There are some such memories related to Sunil Gavaskar completing 10,000 Test runs. Regarding one such incident, Sunil Gavaskar told The Indian Express, ‘The thing I remember the most is that we were in Ahmedabad. And Ahmedabad is a dry place (a city where alcohol is banned). But Kapil Dev somehow managed to get the champagne!’
Sunil Gavaskar said, ‘He was amazing. He was the captain. He certainly acquired some champagne with special permission. I’m not sure whether today’s support staff and sports nutritionists will allow us to drink even a sip of champagne in the middle of a Test match.