'Joe Root will undoubtedly go down as England's greatest batter': Former England batter Ian Bell

Former England batter Ian Bell has hailed the impact of Joe Root as he continues his march to be England’s best Test batter. In the recently concluded Test series against Sri Lanka, Root broke Alastair Cook’s record for most Test hundreds by an English batter. The 33-year-old batter has 34 hundreds in the red-ball format and now needs 71 more runs to become the greatest English batter. On the horizon, he is also compared to great Sachin Tendulkar with some predicting he could break the Indian batter’s record for most runs in Test cricket.

According to Bell, even if Root fails to surpass Tendulkar’s record for most runs in the format he will still go down as one of the greatest English batters. At the time of writing, Root needs 3520 runs to surpass Tendulkar’s tally and still has a good 3-4 years of cricket left in him.

Root is England’s greatest?

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"Joe has played incredibly well over the past 12 months. I don't think he's overly focused on chasing records but is living in the moment," Bell said. "To even be in a conversation with someone like Sachin, a true great of the game, is an incredible achievement. Regardless of whether he breaks that record, Root will undoubtedly go down as England's greatest batter."

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Root is not part of the English side in their current ODI series against Australia. He has not represented England in the ODI format since the World Cup in November 2023. Hiscareer in the white-ball is all but over having also not played T20I cricket since May 2019.

In a rain-curtailed contest against the Aussies on Tuesday (Sep 24), Harry Brook came good after his unbeaten hundred helped the hosts stay in the series. England have now narrowed Australia’s lead in the five-match series and now trail by 2-1.