Alastair Cook’s 263: Analysis and records

English captain Alastair Cook played a marathon 263 against Pakistan at Abu Dhabi in the first Test of the series. Bharath Seervi analyses the performance with important numbers and records.

Alastair Cook’s 263 was not a commonplace innings. Watching a batsman bat for nearly 14 hours is not a regular sight even in Test cricket. Cook played out 528 deliveries in 836 minutes to score 263 against Pakistan in the first of the three-Test series. He stood at the crease until his team went past Pakistan’s first innings total of 523.

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After electing to bat Pakistan put on a big total of 523 for 8. A rearguard action was need, and Cook took the matter in his hands. He was in no hurry, and was judicious in stroke-selection. He kept batting, batting and batting, standing at one end of the wicket. He got support from some of his teammates and bailed England out of trouble. He was at the crease till 190 overs with the score nearing 550, already more than the Pakistan’s total.

When Cook got out as the seventh batsman, the score was 549 in the 191st over. He batted for 13 hours 56 minutes. England took a lead of 65 runs before declaring and had as good as saved the Test. The declaration came in the first session of the fifth day and match was definitely heading towards a draw, but debutant Adil Rashid, after going wicketless for 163 in the first innings, took 5 for 64 in the second on the final day. Pakistan were dismissed for 173 runs after tea. Set 99 in 19 overs, England tried their best, but bad light stopped play after a mere 11 overs.

Leaving the result and the drama on the final day, Cook’s innings will be remembered for a long time. Let us analyse the innings.

Runs by scoring shots

–          Cook did not hit any six in his innings.

Each milestone

Off-side vs on-side

In different phases

–          Numbers of runs calculated are for every 100 balls; this is also the strike rate.

By day

 

By session

By bowler

Partnerships

Records and trivia

836: Time spent by Cook at crease (13 hours 56 minutes). It was the third longest innings in terms of time spent after Hanif Mohammad’s 337 in 970 minutes (16 hours 10 minutes) against West Indies at Kensington Oval in 1957-58 and Gary Kirsten’s 275 in 878 minutes (14 hours 38 minutes) against England at Kingsmead in 1999-00.

528: Balls faced by Cook. It was the most by any English captain, and eighth-highest among all captains. In fact, no English captain faced even 500 balls in a Test innings. The previous record was 492 by Michael Atherton during his iconic 185* against South Africa at New Wanderers in 1995-96. The overall record is 743 by Bobby Simpson during his 311 against England at Old Trafford in 1964.

2,065: Aggregate runs by Cook in Asia after this innings. He went past Jacques Kallis’ 2,058, the previous record for any non-Asian batsman in Asia. Both have scored 8 hundreds — another record.

9,015: Cook completed 9,000 runs as Test opener. Though he is a regular opener for England in Tests, he has played 12 innings as a non-opener, all at No. 3. He became only the third opener to cross 9,000 runs in Tests after Sunil Gavaskar (9,607) and Graeme Smith (9,030).

(Bharath Seervi is a cricket statistician who is obsessed with digging numbers, facts and records related to the game. An active member of Society of Cricket Statisticians of India, he blogs at www.cricketseervistats.blogspot.com. He can be followed on Twitter at www.twitter.com/SeerviBharath and on Facebook at www.facebook.com/SeerviCricket)