England’s star opener Alastair Cook shocked the world by announcing retirement from Test cricket. Cook has struggled to score against Indian bowlers despite home conditions. The fifth Test of the series, a dead rubber will be the last Test of his career. With age on his side, many cricket pundits backed him to break Sachin Tendulkar’s record of most runs in Test cricket.
Now, Cook will have to pull off a few tricks from his bag if he aims to break into the top-five run-scorers in Test cricket. The left-handed opener has 12.254 runs from 160 games. In order to beat Sangakkara, he has to score more than 146 runs at Kennington Oval, London.
Though it might be too much to ask from the 33-year-old as he has scored just 107 runs from 7 innings in the series so far. The Essex batsman scored a century on his debut against India. Now, he will be playing his farewell game against the same country. The only difference is that this time he will be playing in front of his home crowd.
A century in the last Test will also ensure that he gets past former Australian skipper Steve Waugh who has 32 centuries to his name. It will also take him to the list of top 10 batsman with most centuries in Test cricket.
Even if he fails to score in his farewell game, Cook will go down in history as highest Test run-scorer and more centuries than any other English batsman.
Also, there is one record which will stay with Cook irrespective of his batting performance. He has the best bowling average for a Test captain. His bowling statistics read an average of 7 after he took the wicket of Ishant Sharma. Maybe that’s the reason why Ishant has targetted the England GOAT.
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