Generally the cricketers don’t have a very long shelf-life as far as their playing careers are concerned and when a cricketer gets into his mid 30s, it is presumed that he might not score a lot of runs after that, particularly in test cricket.
But, there have been a few cricketers in test cricket history who have scored loads of runs in the longest format of the game after celebrating their 35th birthday.
Here are the 3 batsmen with most runs in test cricket after the age of 35 –
Graham Gooch (England)
Graham Gooch played a whopping number of 52 test matches for England after he turned 35-year old and scored 4563 runs in 96 innings at an average of 48.54. These were more than 50% of the runs that Gooch scored in his whole test career, which is phenomenal because it can be said that Gooch peaked as a test match batsman after turning 35.
Gooch scored 12 hundreds and 21 half centuries after 35 years of age and his highest score of 333 also came in that period only.
Geoffrey Boycott (England)
Geoffrey Boycott was another England batsman who played plenty of test cricket post the age of 35. Boycott finished his test career with 8114 runs in 108 test matches and out of those 8114 runs, 3535 runs came after he turned 35.
Boycott averaged 47.77 in test cricket after the age of 35, which was better than his overall career average of 43.56. The Yorkshire right-hander got to the three figure mark 10 times and scored a half century 16 times in his mid to late thirties.
Alec Stewart (England)
Alec Stewart, like Graham Gooch, also played more than 50 test matches after he turned 35 and he completely justified hs selection in the England test team by scoring a lot of runs. He was originally a wicketkeeper batsman, but he also opened the batting for England whenever required and did reasonably well.
Stewart averaged a tad lower after getting into his mid-thirties if compared to his overall career average, but he played a number of impactful knocks at the top of the order for England in the latter part of his career and retired as an England test match great. Stewart scored 3310 runs in 58 test matches at an average of 37.19, after he turned 35.
