Records tumble, Tendulkar in sight – Alastair Cook and England´s 100 club in numbers
Alastair Cook appeared in his 134th Test on Thursday, surpassing Alec Stewart to hold the record for most England appearances outright in the long form of the game.
The skipper, who had rushed to the subcontinent after the birth of his second child, made just four during a bad start for the tourists against Bangladesh in Chittagong.
As the captain seeks to build on his team’s 258-7 at stumps on day one, we bring you the best Opta numbers from Cook’s career, as well as some from the other England players with a century or more of Test appearances and cricket’s other exemplars of longevity.
10603 – Cook has the most Test runs in England’s history, 1703 more than Graham Gooch (8900)
0 – Of the 13 England players to make 100 or more Test appearances, 12 have at least 14 centuries. The only man without a ton is James Anderson, who must console himself with his 463 wickets. Ian Botham is 80 behind on 383, with Gooch’s 23 a distant third.
47.72 – The watchful Geoffrey Boycott is the proud possessor of the best average among England’s 100 club, followed by Kevin Pietersen (47.28) and Cook (47.12).
21 – Colin Cowdrey had the longest Test career of the 100 club, spanning 21 years, followed by Graham Gooch’s 20-year knock. By contrast, former captain Andrew Strauss played his 100 Tests in just eight years.
29 – Cook has the most centuries of the group, followed by Pietersen (23). Ian Bell, Boycott and Cowdrey all have 22.
132 – Other than wicketkeeper Stewart (263), Cook has the most catches, followed by Cowdrey and Botham, who both took 120.
200 – Cook is 11th on the list of Test cricket’s all-time appearance makers. The incomparable Sachin Tendulkar took 24 years, from 1989 to 2013, to reach 200. England’s captain has made it to 134, just 66 behind the little master, in a little over 10 years, perhaps leaving the Indian great looking over his shoulder.
15 – After Cook, who remains active, the next shortest careers among the all-time appearance makers belong to Kumar Sangakkara and Shane Warne, who needed 15 years to reach 134 and 145 Tests respectively.
