The Roar
The Roar

Advertisement

Alastair Cook is an all-time great

Roar Rookie
30th December, 2017
Advertisement
Alastair Cook may have experienced some lows, but always emerged from them. (Nick Potts/PA Wire.)
Roar Rookie
30th December, 2017
19

In the final over of Day 2 of the Boxing Day Test Alastair Cook brought up his 32nd Test century in typical Cook fashion.

There were a couple of glances to his favoured leg side to move him through the 90s as well as a crunching trademark pull shot to bring up the three figures.

By the end of Day 3 Alastair was truly cooking. An authoritative straight drive, arguably the shot of the match to that point, past a hapless Jackson Bird early in the evening session saw him notch up the fifth double century of a sparkling career.

Along the way he leapfrogged Mahela Jayawardene, then Shivnarine Chanderpaul and finally Brian Lara to move into sixth on the all-time list of Test leading run-scorers; posted the highest score ever by a touring batsman on the MCG; and became one of the select few visitors to post a ton at each of Australia’s five primary Test venues.

With the fall of James Anderson’s wicket early on Day 4 he became the first English opening batsman since Michael Atherton in 1997 to carry his bat through an innings and the first since Geoffrey Boycott in 1979 to do so in an Ashes series.

Despite these impressive statistics and imposing records he is rarely spoken of with the gusto and awe of many of his modern contemporaries or the other players present in the top ten run-scorers.

(Nick Potts/PA Wire.)

Indeed many Australians on social media or in bar room discussion will speak of Cook with scorn and derision. They will mock his weakness outside off stump early in his innings and proceed to dismiss the often attritional nature of his batting when he gets through that period. They will recall and laugh at his performances as batsman and captain in the face of Mitchell Johnson’s onslaught in the 2013-14 Ashes series.

Advertisement

Perhaps some of them have a point. The 2013-14 Ashes series was a disaster, with Cook’s performance as captain ignominious. He is in the habit of nudging around and nicking off while getting settled at the crease, and he certainly doesn’t have the flair of a Lara, the class of a Jayawardene or the relentless counter attacking spirit of a Ricky Ponting.

What he does have, however, is a patience to outlast any fast bowler – he gives the impression that he would fancy watching paint dry just to prove that he could – a fierce determination to protect his wicket by any means necessary and a hunger for occupying the crease for long periods of time. Often his batting is as implacably stubborn as a sauce stain in an apron of his namesake, all done with a class and understatement indicative of the type of character he is off the field.

Never was this more prominent than during the 2010-11 Ashes series in Australia. He simply batted and batted and batted, outlasting anything that the Australian bowlers threw at him while defying any plan cooked up deep in the bowels of the Australian HQ. His 766 runs at 127.66 were deserving of man of the series honours and pivotal in securing England a first away Ashes win since 1986/87.

It is a series that many Australians have conveniently and quite understandably wiped from their memory when it comes to the Cook conversation. Of course one excellent series is not enough to consider someone among the best ever, but for Cook this was simply his magnum opus in a career that leaves him deserving of being considered one of the all-time greats.

close