Alastair Cook

Alastair Cook

Alastair Cook in 2016
Personal information
Full name	Alastair Nathan Cook
Born	(1984-12-25) 25 December 1984 (age 32) Gloucester, Gloucestershire, England
Nickname	Cookie, Chef
Height	6 ft 2 in (1.88 m)
Batting style	Left-handed
Bowling style	Right-arm slow, Right-arm medium
Role	Opening batsman
International information
National side	England
Test debut (cap 630)	1 March 2006 v India
Last Test	16 December 2016 v India
ODI debut (cap 196)	28 June 2006 v Sri Lanka
Last ODI	16 December 2014 v Sri Lanka
ODI shirt no.	26
Domestic team information
Years	Team
2002	Bedfordshire
2003	Essex Cricket Board
2003–present	Essex (squad no. 26)
2004–2007	MCC
Career statistics
Competition Test ODI FC LA Matches 140 92 252 150 Runs scored 11,057 3,204 19,808 5,204 Batting average 46.45 36.40 47.84 37.71 100s/50s 30/53 5/19 56/97 9/31 Top score 294 137 294 137 Balls bowled 18 – 282 18 Wickets 1 – 7 0 Bowling average 7.00 – 30.14 – 5 wickets in innings 0 – 0 – 10 wickets in match 0 n/a 0 n/a Best bowling 1/6 – 3/13 – Catches/stumpings 141/– 36/– 252/– 63/–
Source: CricketArchive, 20 December 2016

Alastair Nathan Cook, CBE (born 25 December 1984) is an English cricketer. A left-handed opening batsman, he is a former captain of the England Test and ODI teams. He is widely regarded as one of the greatest and most successful batsmen ever to play for England, and one of the most prolific batsmen of the modern era. Cook played for Essex's Academy and made his debut for the first XI in 2003. He played in a variety of England's youth teams from 2000 until his call up to the Test side in 2006. He normally fields at first slip.

While touring in the West Indies with the ECB National Academy, Cook was called up to the England national team in India as a last-minute replacement for Marcus Trescothick and debuted with a century. He made his debut at the age of 21 and went on to score 1,000 runs in his maiden year and become the youngest Englishman to reach 1,500, 2,000, 3,000, 4,000, 5,000 and 10,000 Test runs, making centuries in his first Test matches against India, Pakistan, the West Indies and Bangladesh.

Despite Cook's run scoring exploits in his early test career, he came under criticism throughout 2008 for a lack of centuries; he replied in 2009 with two centuries, as well as a score of 95 against Australia to help seal England's first victory against them at Lord's since 1934. He took seven catches in the series, including the final wicket, to win the 2009 Ashes series. After deputising as Test captain in 2010 and then taking ODI captaincy full-time, Cook went on to play another pivotal role in retaining the 2010-11 Ashes series, breaking records by scoring the second highest number of runs in a Test series by an Englishman, including his maiden first-class double-hundred and two further hundreds, and batting for over 35 hours during the series.