Published: Nov 29, 2012, 10:23 AM (IST)
Edited: Nov 29, 2012, 10:23 AM (IST)
If the adjective great seems to be too liberal and loose when used to describe Alastair Cook at this moment, there are very strong indications that he is on the verge of walking into that exclusive club © Getty Images
Alastair Cook has had a sensational series so far and his claims to greatness have been reasserted. Arunabha Sengupta analyses to see that, at the current moment, his 85 Test- career places him alongside the best openers in the history of the game.
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Few can doubt the quality of Alastair Cook’s batsmanship. He has made runs with regularity and poise across the world on seaming, bouncy and turning tracks, and has grown more prolific with experience and responsibility.
At 27, he has already drawn level with the Test record of 22 centuries for an English batsman – a ridiculously low number given that England has been playing Test cricket since its inception. Given the form he is in, it should not take him too long to go past Wally Hammond, and it promises to be a healthy race down the next few years with Kevin Pietersen who also stands at 22 hundreds.
While his heroics of the recent past have raised his claims to greatness as an opener, judging a batsman cruising at the crest of his career against all-time greats is riddled with risks. Anyone who carried out a similar exercise for Gautam Gambhir in 2009 will know all about the pitfalls.
Yet, having played 85 Tests, Cook has done enough to leave a significant mark on the pages of cricket history. Going by the way Cook approaches his batting, it is reasonably safe to say that he has a long career ahead of him – his game is safe and based on sedate technique, not unduly dependent on the extra keenness of eye and the fractionally quicker movements of limbs that comprise the gifts of youth. It makes sense to find out where he stands with respect to the other opening batsmen of repute.
If we look at the records, we find Cook perched comfortably among the best opening batsmen. Among all the notable openers who have played more Tests, only four boast an average greater than Cook. Two of them, Virender Sehwag and Graeme Smith, are his contemporaries, and the difference between them and Cook is almost negligible and fast decreasing with time.
What is even more striking is that only five – Sunil Gavaskar, Matthew Hayden, Smith, Sehwag and Geoff Boycott had figures better than Cook at their 85-Test point … the same stage the England captain stands now.
So, at the current moment, Cook seems to be doing pretty well.
Top opening batsmen in Test history
| Career | After 85 Tests | ||||||||||
| Opener | Tests | Runs | Ave | 100s | 50s | Tests | Runs | Ave | 100s | 50s | |
| SM Gavaskar | 125 | 10122 | 51.12 | 34 | 45 | 85 | 7385 | 53.51 | 26 | 33 | |
| ML Hayden | 103 | 8625 | 50.73 | 30 | 29 | 85 | 7384 | 52.74 | 26 | 26 | |
| GC Smith | 104 | 8469 | 49.52 | 26 | 34 | 85 | 7090 | 50.64 | 21 | 27 | |
| V Sehwag | 100 | 8487 | 50.51 | 23 | 32 | 85 | 7613 | 54.56 | 22 | 27 | |
| G Boycott | 108 | 8114 | 47.72 | 22 | 42 | 85 | 6415 | 49.72 | 18 | 34 | |
| GA Gooch | 118 | 8900 | 42.58 | 20 | 46 | 85 | 6336 | 42.24 | 13 | 37 | |
| MA Taylor | 104 | 7425 | 43.49 | 19 | 40 | 85 | 5939 | 41.82 | 15 | 33 | |
| CG Greenidge | 108 | 7558 | 44.72 | 19 | 34 | 85 | 6054 | 46.93 | 15 | 30 | |
| MA Atherton | 115 | 7728 | 37.69 | 16 | 46 | 85 | 5963 | 39.49 | 12 | 37 | |
| JL Langer | 105 | 7696 | 45.27 | 23 | 30 | 85 | 6401 | 46.05 | 21 | 24 | |
| DL Haynes | 116 | 7487 | 42.29 | 18 | 39 | 85 | 5340 | 41.39 | 12 | 31 | |
| AJ Strauss | 100 | 7037 | 40.91 | 21 | 27 | 85 | 6111 | 42.14 | 19 | 24 | |
| ST Jayasuriya | 110 | 6973 | 40.07 | 14 | 31 | 85 | 5430 | 41.45 | 11 | 26 | |
| A Cook | 85 | 6912 | 49.37 | 22 | 29 | 85 | 6912 | 49.37 | 22 | 29 | |
Apart from the batsmen listed above, there have been other celebrated openers across history who did not manage to play as many Tests. In the table below we have taken a look at the careers of venerable names who flourished as openers, and have recorded Cook’s figures at corresponding junctures when their respective careers ended.
We find that apart from the greatness of Jack Hobbs, Herbert Sutcliffe and Len Hutton, Cook is fairly abreast with the rest of the best openers in history.
| Other openers with min 3000 runs at 45+ | Cook at similar stage | ||||||||||
| Opener | Tests | Runs | Ave | 100s | 50s | Tests | Runs | Ave | 100s | 50s | |
| L Hutton | 79 | 6971 | 56.67 | 19 | 33 | 79 | 6357 | 48.89 | 19 | 29 | |
| H Sutcliffe | 54 | 4555 | 60.73 | 16 | 23 | 54 | 4138 | 44.97 | 12 | 22 | |
| JB Hobbs | 61 | 5410 | 56.94 | 15 | 28 | 61 | 4666 | 45.30 | 14 | 23 | |
| B Mitchell | 42 | 3471 | 48.88 | 8 | 21 | 42 | 3127 | 46.86 | 8 | 19 | |
| WM Lawry | 67 | 5234 | 47.15 | 13 | 27 | 67 | 5465 | 49.23 | 18 | 26 | |
| RB Simpson | 62 | 4869 | 46.81 | 10 | 27 | 62 | 4814 | 46.28 | 15 | 24 | |
| Saeed Anwar | 55 | 4052 | 45.52 | 11 | 25 | 55 | 4168 | 44.34 | 12 | 22 | |
| CC Hunte | 44 | 3245 | 45.06 | 8 | 13 | 44 | 3303 | 44.04 | 9 | 19 | |
Standing at this point, we can say Alastair Cook has had an excellent career so far, has been consistent, at par with all but the very best, and has matured steadily.
If the adjective great seems to be too liberal and loose when used to describe the southpaw at this moment, there are very strong indications that he is on the verge of walking into that exclusive club.
(Arunabha Sengupta is a cricket historian and Chief Cricket Writer at CricketCountry. He writes about the history and the romance of the game, punctuated often by opinions about modern day cricket, while his post-graduate degree in statistics peeps through in occasional analytical pieces. The author of three novels, he can be followed on Twitter at http://twitter.com/senantix)
