I find it hard to see anyone playing as well as Joe Root: Cook

New Delhi, Oct 22 (IANS) Former England captain Alastair Cook believes in-form compatriot Joe Root can get 'very close' to Sachin Tendulkar's 15,921 Test runs in the coming years.Recently, Root surpassed Cook to become the leading run-getter and century-maker for England in the first Test between England and Pakistan in Multan earlier this month. With 12,716 runs, Root is the fifth-highest run-scorer in Test cricket.

“I watched the moment, then I rang him after the end of the play. I couldn't think of the right words to write in a text message. So I thought I’d just ring him, see what he was up to, and make sure he had a beer in his hand, which I think he did,” Cook, who was inducted into the ICC Hall of Fame, said during a round-table interview hosted by the ICC.

“I think Joe Root could set a mark, certainly on an English side, that’ll be very hard to beat. But you just never know. I hope he can get very close, if not be the first person who scores 16,000 Test runs. It'd be a great achievement," he added.In the last four years, Root has been on the rise in Test cricket with more than half of his 35 centuries coming in that period with an average close to 60.

Former England captain said that Root is currently the best batter in the world, perhaps only matched by New Zealand’s Kane Williamson, and showing better form than both Steve Smith and Virat Kohli – the other members of the group known by many as the ‘big four’.

"I think at this precise moment in time, I find it hard to see anyone playing as well as Joe Root. Over the last year or so, of the so-called ‘Big Four’, I think Williamson and him are probably in the best form at the moment," Cook said.

"They're all wonderful, wonderful players, all very different, actually, in their methods and ways of playing. But one thing which kind of unites them is that hunger and desire to keep improving and keep churning out the runs," he added.

Cook, who retired from international cricket in 2018, feels that England's cricket changed drastically in both limited overs and Test cricket after Eoin Morgan and Ben Stokes took charge of the teams, respectively.

“I think the game has certainly made a big jump forward in what is now deemed possible in Test cricket. I think the jump happened in one day cricket first, probably. The fundamental change, certainly from the English point of view, is when Eoin Morgan took the side forward in 2015. And obviously the Ben Stokes era has changed the mentality of what was possible," the former opening batter said.