Will Alastair Cook go on to surpass Tendulkar's test run tally?

[91Jmay]

He needs to start getting daddy hundreds again. He is in great form at the moment but only one ton recently to show for it.

 

[Black_Warrior]

He hasn't been getting that many hundreds to be honest since that Ashes 2013. I mean if Hafeez has more hundreds than you as an opener, there's something not quite right. And this has been the best form I have seen him in since the dark days of 2013.

 

[Shady Slim]

england as a whole have had a problem with turning starts in to daddies tbf

 

[vcs]

Hope he does it. Root or Smith will probably hold it by the time they're done. Wouldn't mind Cook keeping it for a while though.

 

[Furball]

You may very well have a point here, but citing one bowlers' stats is a pretty weak and piss-poor way of trying to make it.

lol

 

[91Jmay]

He hasn't been getting that many hundreds to be honest since that Ashes 2013. I mean if Hafeez has more hundreds than you as an opener, there's something not quite right. And this has been the best form I have seen him in since the dark days of 2013.

Yeah, let them both play in the UAE and see what happens.

 

[Furball]

It's a legit criticism, his conversion rate has been really poor recently. Even this series, where he's been about as good as I've seen him (certainly at home anyway) his top score is only 105.

 

[Captain_Cook]

He hasn't been getting that many hundreds to be honest since that Ashes 2013.

The two major factors: Rhino and a regression in Cook's leaving ability. Harris really made Cook question his technique and the legacy of that meant he went 2014 without a hundred.

 

[Howe_zat]

Cook batted fine through most of 2014. Averaged 50 against India that year despite not scoring a ton.

Either way I think he has done his tough mid-career slump and come out the other side, and he didn't really drop far off the pace in terms of runs. Century count not what it could have been but that's a different measure.

Reason I haven't shifted from 'unlikely' is because of what I said in the 30 tons thread, look at the likes of Clarke and G Smith. We are often happy to predict runs and wickets will continue at their current rate through a player's thirties, but only after the coincidental careers of Tendulkar, Kallis, Sangakkara and Chanderpaul got us used to the idea. It's actually pretty weird.

 

[flibbertyjibber]

It is funny really that we are critical of Cook and Root in this series for not going on when between them they will possibly pass 1000 runs in the series by the end of this match.

Are we a little too critical of them both?

 

[Howe_zat]

It is funny really that we are critical of Cook and Root in this series for not going on when between them they will possibly pass 1000 runs in the series by the end of this match.

Are we a little too critical of them both?

We're pretty damn critical of everyone.

Cook - not enough big scores
Hales - poor technique, footwork not good enough for tests
Root - wasting his talent and needs to convert more
Vince - no concentration and poor shot selection
Ballance - poor technique, did nothing to earn a recall
Bairstow - road warrior who can't keep wicket
Moeen Ali - Can't bowl tightly or turn it enough, too loose to bat in the top 6
Woakes - inspires too many dropped catches off his bowling and has a bad haircut
Broad - too inconsistent and doesn't pitch it up enough
Anderson - too inconsistent and doesn't pitch it up enough
Finn - too inconsistent and doesn't pith it up enough

In short, drop everyone and play Azeem Rafiq

 

[Black_Warrior]

Yeah, let them both play in the UAE and see what happens.

They both did. Both came out with 1 hundred and one of them did that against tougher opposition


Look you're getting sore for no reason. Cook vs Hafeez is not a conversation. I was not even being overly critical of Cook as a batsman..but in this specific topic where we are talking about whether he would get 6000 runs more in the space of say 4-5 years, how many hundreds he is getting is a legitimate conversation. Irrespective of whether he gets these hundreds and those 6k runs, he will still be considered one of the greatest openers of the modern era, perhaps one of the greatest from England ever.

 

[Black_Warrior]

Yeah thought this conversation had died


Blogs: Kartikeya Date: Will Cook break all of Tendulkar's Test records? | Cricket Blogs | ESPN Cricinfo

Will Cook break all of Tendulkar's Test records?

When Alastair Cook walked out for the toss in Chittagong on October 20, 2016, he became England's most capped Test player. At the time of writing, he holds every England Test batting record worth holding. He has made more Test runs, more Test hundreds, more Test fifties and played in more Test wins (and scored more runs in Test wins) than any other England cricketer in history.

He has captained England in 54 Tests, a record he currently shares with Mike Atherton. Since World War II, only Joe Root, Denis Compton, Ken Barrington and Len Hutton have improved on Cook's career Test average of 47.

Cook's Test average matches that of Kevin Pietersen, Ted Dexter, Peter May, Dennis Amiss and Geoff Boycott. No other England player since the war averages better than 45 runs per dismissal. Cook is also the only English player to score more than 10,000 Test runs. In the current England line-up, Root is more than 6000 runs behind.

Cook belongs in exalted company. But perhaps the most stunning thing about his career is that it has taken him fewer than 11 years to achieve all these records. That's less than half the length of Sachin Tendulkar's Test career. If Cook plays for as long as Tendulkar did, he will play nearly 300 Test matches, score nearly 24,000 Test runs and 66 Test hundreds, provided he maintains his current rate. At the end, he'll be a very tired 45-year-old man.

As Misbah-ul-Haq has shown, it's possible for an experienced player to be capable of Test-quality play after the age of 40.

For the 192 players whose careers have lasted as long as Cook's has so far, the median number of Tests played is 67. Cook has averaged one Test every 29 days during his career. Among players of comparable longevity, those who come closest to this are Mark Boucher (34 days per Test) and Rahul Dravid (35 days per Test). Tendulkar played a Test once every 44 days during his career.

Until the turn of the century, the player who most resembled Cook's unusually high frequency of Test caps was Allan Border, who averaged a Test every 36 days. Border played about ten Tests per year during his career. Cook has played 12.5. Until Cook came along, the fastest player to 133 Tests was Boucher and it took him nearly 21 extra months.

NUMBER OF DAYS SINCE DEBUT TO REACH 133 TESTS
Player Days Since Debut Days Per Test
Allan Border 5074 38
Ricky Ponting 4965 37
Shane Warne 5084 38
Steve Waugh 5547 42
Alastair Cook 3878 29
Rahul Dravid 4656 35
VVS Laxman 5536 42
Sachin Tendulkar 6242 47
Mark Boucher 4515 34
Jacques Kallis 5115 38
Mahela Jayawardene 5579 42
Kumar Sangakkara 5499 41
Shivnarine Chanderpaul 6419 48
If Tendulkar had played Tests at the rate that Cook has, then he would have ended up with about 75 career Test hundreds. At first glance, these are doubtful extrapolations. In the case of elite Test batsmen (such as all those who score, say, at least 5000 Test runs), it can be safely assumed that they do not lack the quality to be regular Test players. Further, the evidence suggests that it is extremely difficult to be an elite regular Test player. We can therefore safely assume that barring injury, the risk of one of these elite players suddenly losing the ability to score runs at Test level is small.

Injuries are far more likely to interrupt their careers than selection troubles. Michael Vaughan suffered from chronic injury problems that almost certainly curtailed his Test career. Ravi Shastri played 80 Tests for India and scored Test hundreds in England, Australia, West Indies and Pakistan in the 1980s and early '90s and yet played his final Test before his 31st birthday thanks to chronic injuries.

But injuries are rare in the case of pure batsmen. Test cricket remains that rare sport in which exceptionally skilled specialist batsmen remain extremely valuable to Test teams even if they are no longer fleet-footed in the outfield.

The difficulties England have faced in trying to replace Andrew Strauss at the top of the Test batting order illustrate just how hard it is to find a quality Test batsman. Since Strauss' retirement in August 2012, Nick Compton, Michael Carberry, Alex Hales, Adam Lyth, Sam Robson and Moeen Ali have averaged 26 at the top of England's order. The search for an opening partner for Cook continues with Ben Duckett.

Root has been Cook's most successful opening partner since Strauss, but he's too important in the middle order to be considered.

Cook's position as the most prolific English Test run-getter is unlikely to be seriously challenged in the near future. Among his contemporaries, only Pietersen and Ian Bell could challenge him and neither is likely to play for England again.

Root will probably break many of Cook's records eventually, but Cook is only 31. If nothing else, Root will face stiff targets. What's more, Cook has already been through a prolonged slump, which most players who enjoy long careers invariably have to endure at least once. Root will have to endure his own slumps.

Over 134 Tests, Cook's career is marked by two outstanding series performances. He made 766 runs in Australia in a five-Test series in 2010-11, and 562 runs in a four-Test series in India in 2012-13. These two series account for just over 12% of his career Test runs and a quarter of his career Test hundreds to date in about 7% of his Tests.

Of his other five Ashes series, only one, the 2015 series in England could be considered a moderate success. Cook made 330 runs at 36 in this series. The other four series brought him 1020 runs in 20 Tests at 26.5 with a solitary century. His two South African tours have produced contrasting returns - 287 runs at 41 in 2009-10, and 184 runs at 23 in 2015-16. His home series against the visiting South Africans have been similarly contrasting. He made 329 runs at 47 in seven innings without a century in 2008. In 2012 he made 195 in six completed innings - 115 of those came in one innings.

Cook has had a happy time in India. His Test debut in Nagpur (60, 104*) was a triumph. After this it took him a further 17 innings to reach a century against India. When he did, it ended at 294, his highest Test score. That innings, like so many of his marathon masterpieces was marked by unerring judgement outside off stump and extremely disciplined treatment of length.

When India toured England in 2014, Cook had been through a couple of low-scoring years by the standards of an elite Test player. He did not make a century in that series, but it was clear that his slump was past him. Since that series, apart from a lean tour to South Africa, Cook has been his old prolific self.

For all of Cook's accomplishments, it will take a brave cricket fan to select him to an all-time post-World War II England XI today. Is he a better Test opener than Gooch, let alone Hutton or Boycott?

What is remarkable about Cook is his age. When Misbah was 31, he had played a grand total of five Test matches. He had never captained Pakistan. Steve Waugh made 20 Test hundreds after his 32nd birthday. Dravid, Tendulkar and Brian Lara made more than 5000 Test runs after they turned 32. Lara had, arguably, the best phase of the Test career after he turned 32.

Following England's triumphant tour of India in 2012-13, there was a great deal of discussion about the near inevitability of Cook breaking Tendulkar's all-time record for Test caps, Test aggregate and Test hundreds. While his subsequent slump silenced these discussions, his recent recovery ought to prompt a rethink.

If Cook plays 200 Tests, then, provided he does not suffer a slump of the kind Tendulkar suffered over his last 20 Tests, he should be mighty close to Tendulkar's all-time aggregate. Tendulkar's 51 Test hundreds will be more difficult for Cook to surpass than his aggregate. To play 200 Tests at his current rate of 12.5 per year, Cook will have to play for another six years. He will still only be 37.

With the exception of Pietersen, recent England captains - Atherton, Nasser Hussain, Vaughan, Paul Collingwood and Strauss - have retired in their mid-30s. Pietersen and Alec Stewart are the exceptions, each for very different reasons. If this pattern holds, then 200 Tests will remain a doubtful landmark for Cook. But as things stand, Cook could end his career having attained or just about crossed most of Tendulkar's all-time milestones. It will be a gargantuan achievement if he does. But even if he doesn't, Cook's place in the history books is assured.

Kartikeya Date writes at A Cricketing View. @cricketingview

 

[flibbertyjibber]

Cricinfo trolling the Indian fans to get a response I see. Top work.

 

[Black_Warrior]

Cricinfo trolling the Indian fans to get a response I see. Top work.

The not so secret formula to get hits - started by the likes Robelinda and DennisDoesCricket and now an actual strategy for a website

 

[Howe_zat]

While the number of Tests England play pretty much always comes up in Cook discussions, what's outstanding about him is that he is the only player to actually take that chance and turn it into what it could be with is an absolute shedload of runs.

Gooch played 118 Tests to set the record for most runs for England but over his 20-year career England actually played well over 200 tests. If Gooch were more consistent and convincing in the early part of his career he would've had more than enough time to score the kind of runs Cook has. But he wasn't good enough to actually go ahead and do it, because that's a whole other matter. Cook's runs are hard earned.

 

[honestbharani]

Also, people talk as if playing more tests per year is some kind of walk in the park. Tests take a **** load off players, even more than ODIs, AFAIC. If nothing else, his sheer fitness and commitment should be lauded at least.

 

[indiaholic]

Yep.. An opener of such high quality playing so many tests is very very valuable.

 

[Daemon]

Yeah, keep reading about his bleep test exploits and his commitment to fitness.

I think what should help Cook now is that he doesn't play ODIs and T20s.

 

[fredfertang]

Cook always strikes me as pretty sane, on which basis I can't see him wanting to play for too much longer