List of batsmen who have scored over 10000 Test cricket runs

Scoring over 10000 runs across a playing career is considered a significant achievement in Test cricket. The feat, first achieved by Indian batsman Sunil Gavaskar in March 1987, has only been achieved by eleven players in the history of the game. Three Indian players have scored 10,000 runs, along with three Australians, one South African, two members of the West Indies cricket team and two Sri Lankan players. Bangladesh, New Zealand, Pakistan and England are yet to see a Test player breach the 10,000 mark.

Scoring 10,000 ODI runs is the comparable statistic in One Day International cricket, and several batmen have achieved the feat in both forms of the game. Indian batsman Sachin Tendulkar, who has scored the most runs and both in Test and ODI cricket, is a notable member of this group, others being Ricky Ponting, Jacques Kallis, Kumar Sangakkara, Rahul Dravid, Brian Lara and Mahela Jayawardene. Achieving one, or both, of these milestones is considered one of the hallmarks of a particularly successful player, though it has been argued that the greater amount of cricket played in the modern era has lent to this statistic a trend of recentism and bias.

To date, no such landmark has been popularly identified in Twenty20 cricket due to the lower scores made during these shorter matches.

List

Rank	Player	Team	Runs	Matches	Average	100s	50s	Period
1	Tendulkar, SachinSachin Tendulkar	India	15,645	194	54.32	51	66	from 1989 to present
2	Ponting, RickyRicky Ponting	Australia	13,378	168	51.85	41	62	from 1995 to 2012
3	Dravid, RahulRahul Dravid	India	13,288	164	52.31	36	63	from 1996 to 2012
4	Kallis, JacquesJacques Kallis	South Africa	13,040	159	56.94	44	57	from 1995 to present
5	Lara, BrianBrian Lara	West Indies	11,953	131	52.88	34	48	from 1990 to 2006
6	Border, AllanAllan Border	Australia	11,174	156	50.56	27	63	from 1978 to 1994
7	Waugh, SteveSteve Waugh	Australia	10,927	168	51.06	32	50	from 1985 to 2004
8	Chanderpaul, ShivnarineShivnarine Chanderpaul	West Indies	10,696	146	51.67	27	61	from 1997 to present
9	Jayawardene, MahelaMahela Jayawardene	Sri Lanka	10,674	137	49.41	31	43	from 1994 to present
10	Gavaskar, SunilSunil Gavaskar	India	10,122	125	51.12	34	45	from 1971 to 1987
11	Sangakkara, KumarKumar Sangakkara	Sri Lanka	10,045	115	55.88	30	41	from 2000 to present
Source: ESPNcricinfo. Last updated: 7 January 2013.

History

Gavaskar, whose Test career commended with his debut match against the West Indies on March 6, 1971, became the first batsman to pass the 10,000 run mark during a Test against Pakistan starting on March 4, 1987. Gavaskar, who scored 63 in India's only innings, passed 10,000 runs with a late cut off Ijaz Faqih to reach 58. He passed the landmark in his 124th Test, and 212th innings. It was the fifteenth year and three-hundred and sixty-third day of his Test career. Gavaskar would remain the only player to have scored 10,000 runs for six years, until January 2 1993 where Border - who scored 74 in Australia's only innings against the West Indies at the Sydney Cricket Ground also reached 10,000 runs when he passed 21 with a on-drive off Carl Hooper, however the event was largely overlooked by Wisden in favour of Lara's maiden double century.

Batsmen with 10,000 or more runs in Test cricket
Australia
Ricky Ponting (13,378) • Allan Border (11,174) • Steve Waugh (10,927)
India
Sachin Tendulkar (15,921) • Rahul Dravid (13,288) • Sunil Gavaskar (10,122)
South Africa
Jacques Kallis (13,128)
Sri Lanka
Mahela Jayawardene (10,806) • Kumar Sangakkara (10,486)
West Indies
Brian Lara (11,953) • Shivnarine Chanderpaul (10,830)