The 'Master Blaster' Tendulkar has 15921 runs in Test cricket, the most for any player in the history of the format. The Indian great also played a record 200 Tests.

Ponting, who is second behind Tendulkar in the tally of most Test runs with 13368 runs from 168 matches, tipped the former England captain Joe Root to overtake Tendulkar and become the all-time highest run-scorer in the format.

“He (Root) could potentially do that. He is 33 years of age…(more than) 3000 runs behind,” said Ponting talking to the ICC Review.

“It depends how many Test matches they play, but if they're playing 10 to 14 Test matches a year and if you're scoring 800 to 1,000 runs a year, then that sort of says he's only three or four years off getting there. So that'll take him to 37 (years of age),” said the legendary Australian.

Root crossed the 12000-run milestone during the recently-concluded England vs West Indies series, becoming only the seventh batter in the history of the format to do so.

The 33-year-old is currently the seventh highest run-scorer in Tests with 12,027 runs in 143 Tests at 50.11 with 32 centuries and 63 fifties.

However, the most successful captain in the history of the game also said that the Englishman will need to have the "hunger" to keep going if he wanted to surpass Tendulkar.

"If his hunger's still there, then there's every chance that he could do it. He is someone that in the last couple of years has got better and better," Ponting said.

Ponting also praised Root for improving his conversion rate.

"There's always talk around batters reaching their prime in their early 30s and he's certainly done that. It's been his conversion rates being the big thing,” he said.

“Four or five years ago, he was making a lot of 50s and struggling to go on and make hundreds and he's gone the other way recently,” Ponting said.

"Almost every time he gets to 50 now, he goes on and makes a big hundred. So that's been the real turnaround for him,” he added.

Tendulkar, widely regarded as the greatest batter of all time, retired from all formats of the game in 2013, a year after Root made his Test debut.