In Praise Of...

Captain Cook, not the explorer, but Alistair, the captain of England’s Test team, who has just become the youngest player to score 10,000 runs—aged 31 years, five months and five days, edging out Sachin Tendulkar who held the record previously by a few months. The distinction arrived when he was playing the 128th Test of a consistently glittering career which has seen him score 28 Test ­hundreds—a record for an Englishman. Cook was appointed captain in 2012 and has led England to Ashes series wins over Australia in 2013 and 2015 but the fact that he has many years of Test cricket ahead of him means he could break a raft of batting records, most held by Tendulkar. Right now, two ­records the Little Master holds that are under threat are the most number of ­career runs (15,921) and most Test centuries (51). Cook has averaged 1,000 Test runs a year since his debut, so he’s well on his way.