Summiting Mount Tendulkar

Kevin Pietersen believes England captain Alistair Cook has a fair chance of surmounting the milestones set by Sachin Tendulkar in Test cricket.

Kevin Pietersen isn’t the most reliable cricketer around when it comes to giving logically constructed speeches. But his latest statement seems to have more than an iota of sense attached to it. KP believes that Alastair Cook, the current England captain, can break Sachin Tendulkar’s record of most Test runs and, not unsurprisingly, he has quite a few backers on this.

Similar statements, though, have boomeranged in the past. In early 2008, it was widely expected that Ponting would cross Tendulkar’s tally of runs by the time both of them finished. Five years later, Ponting has finished and Tendulkar is soldiering on with a lead of more than 2,000 runs. While Cook can definitely showcase his worth in the long run, it is too early to decide his claim at the present. What makes more sense is looking at batsmen who are relatively closer to the targets and would be nearing the end of their expectedly long careers.

Many reasons can be attributed to Tendulkar’s stupendous achievements apart from his obvious God-gifted talent – an early start, a long relatively injury-free career and world-class batting support in the form of Dravid, Laxman and Ganguly. While it is difficult to simulate these factors, what we can do is predict the chances of the usual suspects at this game. The assumption made is Sachin finishes his illustrious career at a hypothetical figure of 16000 runs (currently he has 15837 of them to boot). To judge current form as well as the possible number of matches the respective batsmen would end up playing till he takes off his boots, I have taken into account the number of matches played, the number of runs scored and the number of centuries made by each of the contenders since the start of 2011.

Jacques Kallis – 13,187 runs, 44 centuries

A long time contender and the one with the best chance to take a shot at one of the targets in the near future. Kallis has scored close to 1,500 runs in his last 27 innings and what is more important is that he has scored 6 centuries which includes his only double century. Reaching 16,000 runs would take Kallis another five years which isn’t very promising considering the fact that he is closing in on 38.

He has a chance though to go for 50 centuries (and more) and on current form should complete it by the end of 2015. He would be 40 by then and probably would have to significantly cut down on his bowling to achieve the same.

Shivnarine Chanderpaul – 10,830 runs, 28 centuries

Probably the unluckiest talent of our generation, Chanderpaul was overshadowed by Lara in his initial years and then by the Windies decline in Test cricket. Despite 1,767 runs with 6 centuries in his last 24 innings, 50 centuries is more improbable than possible while 16,000 runs should take him any time from 7 to 8 years for now. This is definitely not music to the ears for a 39-year-old.

He has a couple of good things to look forward to though – Lara is just 1,123 runs and 6 centuries away and junior Chanderpaul has started to make all the right noises at age-level cricket.

Mahela Jayawardene – 10,806 runs, 31 centuries

One of the two bulwarks of the Sri Lankan batting lineup, Jayawardene has only scored 1,279 runs in his last 41 innings at an average of just above 31. If his form doesn’t improve substantially, he would require around 10 years to touch the magical mark of 16,000. Given his one-century-a-year strike rate of recent times, he would have to be around for a really long time to get to 50 centuries. The good thing though is that he has got age on his side to a certain extent (he is currently 36) to work his fortunes around.

Kumar Sangakkara – 10486 runs, 33 centuries

Kumara Sangakkara, if he can continue his rich vein of form, has a probable chance of surpassing Tendulkar’s 16,000 Test runs.

The other bulwark of the Sri Lankan middle order is in the form of his life with over 2,200 runs in his last 40 innings and 9 centuries including a double and an unbeaten 199. At the same rate he should reach 50 centuries or more the same time he touches 40 – which is 5 years from now. Getting to 16000 should take him another year which can be managed since he has given up his wicket-keeping duties and may give up on the shorter versions on the game in the near future. The very fact that Sri Lanka is one of the few teams left which plays a significant amount of Test cricket should help his cause.

So, according to our predictions, Kumar Sangakkara has the best chance of toppling both Test records set by the Master Blaster while Jacques Kallis can best his tally of centuries. Alastair Cook just might have new tasks cut out for him.