Ok, its a slow rainy day and I had some time to kill. You can refer to the spreadsheet I am linking to here.
Few interesting trends emerge -
The early years (till 2014) -
Smith and Root were clearly ahead of both KW and Virat, averaging 50+ to the 40 and 44 from KW and Virat respectively. Smith and Virat were also scoring their runs at a reasonably faster clip (25%) than KW and Root. Should be noted though that both Smith and Root only played 20 odd tests compared to 38 by KW and 32 by Virat.
The Fab 4 Peak (2015-2019) -
Smith pulled ahead here but not by as much as we may think. He averaged 70 but Virat and Kane were not far behind with 62. Root fell off a bit of a cliff at this point, maybe lending credence to
@Burgey s theory that he is just not that good against top class bowling, averaging 48 @ 58. He also played almost 70 tests compared to 50 odd from Virat and 40 odd from Kane and Steve Smith. Maybe its test spam causing the differential, maybe its the consistently high quality bowling era.
Special mention to Virat striking his 62 avg @ 62 SR as well, which is a reasonable distance ahead of the 56-58 range of the other 3. Virat also played the 2nd most games in this period.
The Covid and post Covid years (2020- Nov 2023) -
KW has hit a bit of a peak here, averaging 74 @ 51, but its also just 17 games. Root is somehow striking
slower inspite of the last year and a half of Bazball (53 @ 53) but has also played more than thrice the games KW has played. Smith has come crashing down past the hump, averaging 48 @ 48 over 30 games in this period. But of course, the big story is how bad Virat has been in this period, averaging 32 over 27 games striking at 45, which is slower than even Steve Smith who seemed to have slowed down to turtle speed in this period.
Overall thoughts -
Smith definitely is ahead in this 4 way race so far, but again he is really not in front by as much as some may assume looking at raw numbers. Root, for some inexplicable reason, hit that trough when the other 3 were all at their peak and you would expect, by general wisdom, any batsman to be at their best in this period. Most batsmen who debut between 20-23 usually hit their peak around 26-32 and yet somehow Root was at his worst in this patch. KW has continued being great post covid which has not been the case with Virat and Smith, while Root has had a renaissance. Virat's fall off the cliff is possibly a bit easier to explain as he seems to be the most technically vulnerable batsman in this group and the stop/start nature of cricket across the pandemic years can easily take a toll on someone who depends so much on rhythm batting like Virat.
If we have to rank them now, I will go -
Smith > KW > Root > Virat.
But like I said earlier, their careers are not done yet and I fully expect them to switch places a bit more before they all hang up their boots. If I have to guess, I expect all 4 to land in the tier below Lara/Sachin amongst the batsmen I have seen and KW and Smith to lead this group within that tier. Wont rule out another late charge by Virat, while Joe Root will continue to do Joe Root things and English test spam will mean both his good spells and bad spells will always be accentuated due to that.
Attaching the spreadsheet for those who are interested in the numbers. And anyone who replies with OK to this post shall be reborn as Rob Quiney in their next birth.