Alastair Cook was on 9,996 Test runs on Monday afternoon when Sri Lankan pacer Nuwan Pradeep ran in to bowl at him. Pradeep bowled a good-length delivery on Cook’s middle-and-leg line, which the left-hander gently tapped off his pads. The ball went trickling away through the leg-side and just about managed to touch the rope. As the crowd at Chester-le-Street rose to applaud the first Englishman to score 10,000 runs in Test cricket, Cook sheepishly grinned and acknowledged the supporters, perhaps relieved that he had finally got it out of his way.
The landmark – by no means an ordinary one – has been within Cook’s touching distance since January, when England toured South Africa for a four-Test series. At the start of that series, the England captain was on 9,785 runs. In the series prior to that, against Pakistan in the United Arab Emirates, he had scored 450 runs in five innings, including a record-breaking marathon innings of 263. Therefore, he shouldn’t have taken too long to knock off the remaining 215 runs.
As it turned out, it took him 11 innings to do it. He needed 36 when the first Test against Sri Lanka started earlier this month. What should not have taken more than an innings took him three and he finally got there in a no-pressure chase of 79 runs.
No ordinary feat
Ten thousand Test runs is still an outstanding achievement and nothing can be taken away from Cook on that front because, in his own words, “you can’t really argue with a bloke who’s scored 10,000 runs. No matter which way you’ve gone about it, that’s a lot of runs, in a lot of different conditions and being tested for a long period of time”, he told ESPNcricinfo before the Sri Lanka series.
Cook is right now at a place where no Englishman has ever even come close to and, at 31 years and five months of age, is also the youngest ever to join the elite 10,000-run club, beating the record of none other than Sachin Tendulkar, one of the all-time greats of the game.
However, is Cook one of the most underwhelming players to score 10,000 runs? You could be forgiven if you feel that way. If you compare him to the four other left-handers in the 10,000 club, Cook does not have the silky elegance of Kumar Sangakkara, the nimble footwork and fluid strokeplay of Brian Lara, the eccentric style of Shivnarine Chanderpaul, or the natural doggedness of Allan Border.
Cook has three shots in his armour: the cut, the pull and the leg-side flick off the pads or hips. He isn’t the most elegant of batsmen and neither is he the quickest. He is the epitome of temperament and tranquility. His stubbornness is legendary, whether it is about budging from the crease when he’s in good nick or giving up the England captaincy when he is going through a slump.
But that’s the uniqueness of Cook. It isn’t easy being an opener, and especially so in the United Kingdom’s perennially overcast conditions, where the new ball swings around. Cook is the only opener apart from Sunil Gavaskar in the 10,000 list. Nearly half of his runs – 4,995 – have come at home at an average of 43.43.
What’s even more remarkable is that Cook’s record on the road trumps his home record. He averages just a shade under 50 away from home and 16 off his 28 Test centuries have also been scored in the opposition’s den. His numbers in Asia, where you need an abundant supply of patience and temperament to survive as a batsman, are phenomenal. He is the only non-Asian among batsmen who have scored over 2,000 Test runs in the continent.
Achievements overshadowed
Cook’s achievements are unfortunately overshadowed by the miserable run that he had in 2013 and 2014, which resulted in him losing his place in England’s one-day squad ahead of the 2015 World Cup and almost lost him his Test captaincy. The Kevin Pietersen saga that also took place around the time did not help. However, his stubbornness came to his rescue and he emerged from it stronger, becoming the third-highest run-scorer in Tests in 2015, with 1,364 in 14 matches.
His crawl to the 10,000-mark this year would have frustrated even the most ardent of English supporters, as well as himself. But you can’t underestimate a man who has scored 10,000 Test runs without breaking a sweat, quite literally.
From scoring a century on debut against India in Nagpur in 2006, Cook has come a long way in the last decade, and he could very well go much further. He looks set to break the norm of early retirements that come with English players and, at 31, looks fit to carry on for at least another four-five years, if form permits. He has already said that he has no plans to give up captaincy till the 2017-’18 Ashes in Australia.
Even if he scores 800-900 runs a year for the next four years, he would be somewhere around the 13,000-run mark and among the top five run-scorers in Test cricket, if not higher. Gavaskar had said back in 2012, when Cook was compiling runs for fun, that he could well go on to score 15,000 runs and 50 Test centuries. While that may seem far-fetched at the moment, Cook will go down history as one of the best batsmen England has ever produced, and among the greats of the game.
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