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After sizing up the bowling and briefly treating himself to a strange and hugely entertaining ‘mustn’t handle the ball’ dance, Alastair Cook quickly moved up through the gears. At times he got as high as third. Mostly he sat in second. When there was a break in play, he refuelled, pumped up his tyres (whatever the hell that might entail in this analogy) and then he carried on.
It was Alastair Cook doing the Alastair Cook thing; playing those four Alastair Cook shots and being there for bloody ages.
Like Shoaib Malik’s monumental 245, a Cook innings is hard to take in. It’s hefty but oddly featureless. Really, the whole point is the size. It’s not an exquisite meal out. It’s the weekly big shop.
Attempting to eat a whole week’s food in one go is inadvisable. That’s not the way to go about it. You need to pace yourself, take a step back. What’s important is that at the end of the week, you’re still alive.
The value of being alive is not to be underestimated. It’s hard to enjoy the finer things in life when you’ve lost your anima. One day, Alastair Cook will disappear and England’s health will instantly deteriorate.
Most runs by age 30
1. Cook 9498
2. Tendulkar 9470
3. Kallis 8033
4. Ponting 7862
That’s not shit
Are those as at 30 years 364 days? Cook will be 31 on Christmas Day this year (he was born in 1984).
@AP Webster
Yes
Ten more years of this, please, chef.
I hope he goes on like Gooch.
We hope he grows a moustache like Gooch and gets out ‘handled the ball’ at least once, like Gooch.
Please NOT for Cook the Goochtache; he would look utterly utterly ridiculous with one of those.
Where is Ceci when we need her, to illustrate for us just how awful that might look?
I’m with Bailout with the “ten more years” refrain. He should by then look like a middle-aged choir boy.
Bell went past Gooch for international runs scored today. Cook’ll be past him soon too.
Ah, Test Match cricket. A game where 13 men stand around in a field for eight hours and then Ian Bell spazzes one to backward point.
Hmm. Maybe we do need a ‘vote up’ button on here after all.
No one ever think of the umpires. It is 15 men standing around in a field.
Alastair Cook – first Englishman to score a double ton against Pakistan since I was born…
…although it had done before in my lifetime, by Ted Dexter in February 1962…
Artist’s Impression of Ged The Last Time
Legend.
(Cook, I mean, not me when I was a fetus).
And now it’s Pakistan who are adopting the foetal position.
(Thought I’d try a different e-mail address, see what monster I get.)
I reckon the only way to solve our opening partner crisis is to clone the chef.
If he can play til he is 45 like the batsmen of old (and to be fair he’ll look about 30 by then) then that’s long enough for his clone to reach his teens (by which time he’ll look about 7, but that seemed to work out ok for Parthiv).
In your Twitter round-up, King, do we think Liam Plunkett is referring to the dish in front of him, or Mark Wood’s expression?
Hoping the dish.
http://www.espncricinfo.com/magazine/content/story/929417.html
A wicket! Root is OUT!
Things are moving on at a pace now. There was I assuming that this match was heading for a full, pointless, soul-destroying draw when BAM – a wicket falls. No longer are England several hundred for three, they are several hundrwd for FOUR. In a few more days or weeks they’ll be ALL OUT, and if they can then skittle Pakistan for 700 or so, knocking off the runs in the remaining epoch should present few problems.
(All times given in apparent mental time.)
I do hope that Cook’s pursuit of personal milestones doesn’t hamper the chance of a decisive result in this match.
I think he’s gone beyond “big shop” now and moved onto storing tins of corned beef and rice pudding in the cellar in case of apocalypse.
Soon as I turn the radio on and AAAAARRRGGGGGGHHHHHH
Learned my lesson. Next time don’t you dare turn that dial, bailo.
Apart from Hutton, Hammond, Sandham and Edrich, no player without a moustache has ever scored a test triple hundred for England. Cook is punching uphill with those kind of odds. Someone needs to take charge of this and insist he geta himself a Ronnie immediately.