‘It’s just a matter of when’ - Reece Topley backs Joe Root to surpass Sachin Tendulkar’s Test record [Exclusive]

In an exclusive interaction with CricTracker, England cricketer Reece Topley shared his thoughts on how a bowler needs to adjust to different captains, with England having seen a shift in white-ball leadership from Jos Buttler and Ben Stokes to their current captain, Harry Brook, in recent years.

Topley also shared his thoughts on veteran batter Joe Root and whether he can surpass Sachin Tendulkar’s record for the most Test runs, as well as how long he believes it could take Root to achieve the feat.

Excerpts from the interview:

Jos Buttler, Harry Brook, Ben Stokes — England's white-ball captaincy has shifted a lot. How does a bowler adjust to different captains reading the game differently? 

I suppose every time you have a change of captaincy you're looking to establish like a trust again or you're looking for the captain to sort of establish his trust in you, sorry. So at the start, you know, I think it's very sort of player-led, I think, that you go with your ideas and they're probably getting a read of, you know, what your plan A, B, C, D is and then depending on the success of those you're probably, the captain's probably thinking with it and probably changing from, you know, their perspective as a batter, changing, you know, where they would likely to hit you and stuff like that and changing what fielders might be up and back on the rope. So yeah, I'd say that's the biggest thing is you're just establishing that connection or rapport with the new captain. Yeah, I loved, you know, playing under Joss, I thought he was great. I think it was very, you know, once you have that chat in a pressure situation a couple times, you know, in bilateral series or whatever when it comes to, you know, knockout cricket when the stakes are higher, you know, you've already been in that situation together so, you know, he knows what my tactics are, he knows how much he dictates, how much I would sort of dictate in those scenarios. So I think it just comes with time and playing with each other.

If we talk about Joe Root, do you think he will go past Sachin Tendulkar in Test Cricket?

I mean, absolutely, in my opinion, just purely because the amount of test matches that England will play. So he's got the opportunity to do it, for sure. And then also he's got the luxury of sort of batting wherever he wants in the line-up. So I think  it's sort of made for Joe Root to go past it. It's just a matter of when, really, I think.