Sir Ian Botham reckons that Alastair Cook can surpass Sachin Tendulkar's record

What’s the story?

England opener Alastair Cook has a strong chance of surpassing Sachin Tendulkar’s record of highest runs in Test cricket’s history according to legendary English all-rounder Sir Ian Botham. The 32-year-old Cook reached the 11,000-run mark recently in the series against India.

Expressing his opinion on the same Botham said, "Cooky (Alastair Cook) is the one player who has any realistic chance of challenging Sachin Tendulkar’s run-scoring feats and I wouldn’t put it past him to set a global standard for others to chase.”

In case you didn’t know...

In the year 2008, Tendulkar became the highest run scorer in Test cricket in an encounter against the Australians when he broke West Indian batting maestro Brian Lara’s record of 11,953 runs. Since then, four other players have surpassed Lara’s record but none of them came close to Tendulkar’s record of 15,921 runs.

However, amongst the current crop of players, Cook is the nearest and has represented England in 138 consecutive Test matches.

The heart of the matter

Cook decided to step down from the position of the captain of the England Test team in order to regain his form with the bat. The decision was welcomed by Ian Botham, according to whom, Cook now will have every chance to surpass Tendulkar.

Currently, Cook is trailing Tendulkar by 4,864 runs in Tests.

Botham feels that Cook is relatively young and with a new role in the team as just an opener, he could continue to churn out precious runs.

Another former England captain, Nasser Hussain also expressed that he was optimistic about seeing Cook break more records now. Hussain was all praise about Cook’s fitness regime and mental strength. He went on to explain that Cook’s work ethic and balance are key to his success. For Hussain, Cook’s triumph in the 2015 Ashes was the best comeback he had seen after being handed a thrashing in the Ashes series in 2013-14.

What’s next?

Joe Root is poised to take over as the captain of the Test team after having already captained at the county-level where he captained Yorkshire. Cook will now focus purely on his role as an opener. Having given up other formats of the game, Cook can purely focus on himself as the highest run-maker in the history of Test cricket.

Sportskeeda’s take

Throughout his career, Cook has scored about 1000 runs every year. In addition to that, England is scheduled to play a number of Tests in 2017 alone. Cook is known to maintain his fitness exceptionally because of which he has played 138 Test matches in a row. Therefore, if Cook finds the much-required form with the bat, then that could well be a reason for Indian cricket fans to worry.