AR Hemant

Cricket followers would know of one of the sport’s most famous records: Jack Hobbs’ record of 61,760 First Class runs.

Here’s a list of batsmen with 50,000 runs or more in First Class cricket.

Now Hobbs played all his cricket between 1905 and 1934.

First Class was the only form of senior cricket then. One-dayers emerged about three-and-a-half decades later, and T20 another three decades down the line.

So now when One-dayers and T20s are thriving, is it fair to say that Hobbs is the most successful batsman in history? Probably not.

When you aggregate the First Class, List A and T20 records of some of the leading run getters, a new order is formed.

Here’s the revised 50K Club.

It’s amazing the two biggest scorers in cricket history have near-identical names.

Where’s the first Indian on this list?

Way down.

Sachin Tendulkar, at 43,246 runs, is the only Indian with more than 40,000 runs in FC, LA and T20 matches.

Amazingly, 30,065 of those have come in international cricket which says something of the context of his performances.

I’m guessing Tendulkar would probably pass 50,000 if he plays for another three years. That would be something.

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