Cook is the youngest ever to get to 10,000 runs.
By Sreekanth A. Nair
England cricket captain Alastair Cook became the youngest player to score 10,000 runs beating the 11-year-old record of Indian cricketer Sachin Tendulkar, in the ongoing second Test against Sri Lanka at Chester-le-Street, on Monday.
Cook broke the record at the age of 31 years, 5 months and 5 days. Sachin Tendulkar was 31 years, 10 months 20 days old when he entered the 10000 club, playing against Pakistan at the Eden Gardens in March 2005.
In the landmark achievement, Cook became the first England batsman to score 10000 test runs for England. He was just 20 runs away from the record when he came out to bat in the first innings of the second test. Dismissed for 15 runs in the first innings, Cook broke the record in post-lunch session of the fourth day when he clipped Nuwan Pradeep for four through mid-wicket.
Cook is the 12th batsman to enter the 10000 club. Brian Lara, Kumar Sangakkara, Ricky Ponting, Rahul Dravid, Mahela Jayawardene, Sunil Gavaskar, Jacques Kallis, Allan Border, Shivnarine Chanderpaul, and Steve Waugh are the others in the list.
Cook, who has 28 test centuries, made his debut against India at Nagpur in 2006. He has played 128 tests. He took over the captaincy of the team from Andrew Strauss in late 2012.
Graham Gooch is the England batsman who stands next to Cook in the runs chart. Gooch has scored 8900 runs from 118 matches.
“He has been a fantastic servant to England and cricket in general, a great ambassador. To average 1,000 Test runs a year since debut is a phenomenal achievement. He’s been the rock of the England batting for a decade and I hope he goes on for a while,” Graham Gooch told BBC.
“Serious achievement be Cooky, @englandcricket legend already. Was a pleasure to bat behind, usually with pad rash,” tweeted former England captain Paul Collingwood.