Troubled only by Tuesday’s no-ball repreive and yesterday’s unusual attempt to bounce him out by Phil Hughes when he was on 99, Alastair Cook has served up yet another helping of heroics for England with a fluid 189 at the SCG.
That the Australian team forewent their usual dogged sportsmanship by offering only the most paltry smattering of applause when he reached three figures said as much about their Cook cabin fever as their unjust sense of pique at those two incidents.
Despite his becoming nature and unobtrusive batting style, however, Cook has been eliciting fervent emotions ever since he swished triumphantly into Nagpur to make his Test debut in 2006.
On an England Academy tour of the Caribbean when an S.O.S. was sent out by the full side following an injury to Michael Vaughan, the heavy-lidded left-hander proceeded to score 60 and 104 n.o. in front of an English press core whose admiration was only surpassed by that of millions of doe-eyed Indian ladies, who momentarily forgot all about Shahrukh Khan to wave posters of this dashing young bushy-eyebrowed swoon-inducer.
From there on in he has played in a total of 65 Tests and scored 15 hundreds, a mind-rattlingly high amount for a man of just 26 and his record-beating form on this tour has been the definitive two fingers to those who wanted him out of the team last summer.
He could justifiably embed those vindicating digits right into my own two cynical, shame-ridden eyes for I, too, was one of those vehement naysayers, and would even go as far to say I was a bit disheartened when he made that relatively turbo-charged place-saving 110 against Pakistan at the Oval last year.
It’s a sorry, sleazy business to be saddened by the success of a member of the team you support, but, having watched and cursed my way through his airy antipodean wafts and snicks at first hand four years ago, he just didn’t seem to me to be the opener to bulwark an away Ashes battle. It’s that sort of judgement that keeps my bookmaker smiling, because Cook has now compiled 766 runs on this tour, scoring three hundreds (including one double) in the process.
He is now only 1451 runs behind Jack Hobbs as England’s leading run scorer in Australia and while that one might have to go undisturbed, Cook is a player used to shattering records. Yesterday he also waltzed past Sir Jack (and Geoffrey Boycott and several other stellar luminaries) on the list of highest English runscorers in a single series and is now second in that list behind only the astonishing Wally Hammond.
One further coda to his success is that, despite his Amir and Asif-led assassination last summer, Cook is still the third highest Test run getter in the last 12 months and, if you want need convincing of some newfound backbone, actually tops the list when it comes to runs scored in his team’s second innings (interesting to note how Sehwag plummets between those two lists, but when you’ve got VVS and Sachin coming in behind you…).
Obviously as an opener he is due more opportunities than the middle order colossuses that also stalk that list, but even so, it’s a very solid effort indeed.
Alastair Cook, the Knee-trembler of Nagpur, English and, perhaps slightly begrudgingly today, Australian cricket salutes you.
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