Alastair Cook overtakes Viv Richards and Brian Lara with double ton – but modest record-breaker still won’t give himself a break
Under-fire opener silenced his critics with heroic unbeaten knock in Melbourne but admits he would have deserved the axe before Fourth Test
ALASTAIR COOK’S sense of modesty would never allow himself to be compared with Viv Richards and Brian Lara.
But statistics do not lie – Cook overtook landmark numbers set by the two West Indies legends during an innings of unremitting personal glory and redemption.
Cook batted throughout day three of the Fourth Test, going on and on, piling up runs, ticking off records and surely eliminating any chance of a series whitewash.
It was an Ashes epic, no doubt, and Cook removed all question marks about his immediate future as an England player.
No bad considering he admitted another failure could have resulted in his being dropped for the first time in his career for next week’s Fifth Test.
Cook supplanted Richards’ record of 208 not out for the highest score by an overseas batsman at the famous and enormous Melbourne Cricket Ground.
And then, with a sumptuous cover drive of which Lara himself would have been proud, Cook overtook the great left-hander’s aggregate of 11,953 runs in Test cricket and moved to sixth on the all-time list.
Richards and Lara are, in my opinion, the best batsmen of the past 40 years. In fact, there is daylight between them and the rest - and that means no offence to the likes of Sachin Tendulkar and Ricky Ponting.
BOTTLE OPENER Alastair Cook shuts up Aussies after being sledged on scoreboard
Cook responded with typical self-deprecation, talking about scoring “ugly runs” and that he “felt sorry for Brian Lara.”
There is a serious side to all this because, having scored 83 runs in the first three Tests, Cook was under immense pressure. Might he be discarded? Was his career drawing to a close?
Cook, 33 on Christmas Day, said: “You don’t know what will happen but I’d have been entitled to be dropped because I literally hadn’t scored a run since Edgbaston (when he made 243 against West Indies in August). That’s two West Indies Tests and three here.
“It feels like I have the backing of the selectors but I’ve still got to deliver. I haven’t done that on this tour and it’s very frustrating.
“One hundred per cent, I’ve been doubting myself. I’ve doubted myself for 12 years and will probably continue to do so.
"The longer it goes without runs, the harder it becomes so that’s why I was quite proud I went to the well again and delivered a performance.
“It’s a shame it is three-and-a-half or four weeks too late but I’ll have to live with that for a long time.”
Cook, nicknamed Chef, said the century he completed on day two was all emotion and was the springboard to enjoying his second day at the office. By the close of day three, he was 244 not out and had faced 409 balls.
It was only the second time he has ever batted with Stuart Broad and they put on exactly 100 for the ninth wicket. Broad, initially bombed with non-stop bouncers, broke free to make a buccaneering, fun-filled half-century.
Cook explained: “It was probably one of the more emotional innings from where I’d been on this tour.
“The feeling when I walked in the changing-room on day two was very special. People can see what it means for us to do well. It meant a lot and I was proud I backed it up with more runs after all the emotion came out.
“So today I enjoyed listening to the Barmy Army and batting with Broady. Just a few times in your career you get into rhythm where time flies by. On this tour, batting for half-an-hour has felt like two hours. For some reason, the last ten hours have gone quickly.
“Batting is not so much fun when you don’t know where your next run is coming from. With my batting, there are quite a few moving parts. If they are not in synch, it can be frustrating.
"I’ve always worked quite hard. Most of my runs are pretty ugly and quite a lot of hard work goes into scoring them. That hasn’t change throughout my career.
“If I could put my finger on exactly what the difference has been in this innings, it would save me a lot of strife.”
Cook was dropped by Steve Smith on 66 and 153 but, otherwise, he hardly played a false shot. His straight and cover driving was as good as at any time in his career.
And his non-sweating physiology and supreme endurance fitness allowed him to continue in 35-degree temperatures with fewer physical obstacles than most.
Of course, Mitchell Starc was missing, Pat Cummins was ill when it mattered on day two, the pitch was benign and the Ashes have already been lost…but this was still a tremendous innings.
Yes, this he was a true Masterchef. Cooky doesn’t get tougher than this.
