Alastair Cook(ing) and failure of Ashwin...

The grind is really frustrating for the Indian fan.  At tea, England are 381/3 and going strong.  We heard and expected this Series to be far different ~ watching India bowl – one feels the helplessness that enveloped much of India's horrendous tours of England and Australia has descended again.  Cook has led from the front and only a run out could prevent Cook from scoring a double.  In the present tour he has scores of 41; 176 at Motera, 122 & 18* at Mumbai; 190 here at Kolkatta.  Today, he was finally run out after playing 377 balls with 23 fours and 2 sixers. 

 

More and more of statistics as he kept scoring;  Cook became the tenth England batsman to pass the 7000-run mark. He broke Sachin Tendulkar's record by becoming the youngest player to reach the landmark. Among the ten England players, only Cook and Hammond have a 50-plus average. Cook, who passed 7000 runs in his 151st innings, is the third-fastest England batsman to reach the mark after Hammond (131 innings) and Pietersen (150 innings).

In terms of runs aggregated, he has a long way to go ~ there are 10 batsmen in the exclusive 10000 club – but only the topper Sachin Tendulkar (15638 in 318 innings); Kallis (12908/268); S Chanderpaul (10696/249); Mahela Jayawardene (10640/226) are still playing.  The others are : Ricky Ponting 13378; Rahul Dravid 13288; Brian Lara 11953; Alan Border 11174; Steve Waugh 10927; and the first man to reach the landmark Sunil Gavaskar 10122.  He has now 23 centuries ~ still long behind Sachin Tendulkar’s 51; Kallis 44; Ponting 41; Dravid 36; Gavaskar 34; Lara 34; Steve Waugh 32; Jayawardene 31; Hayden 30 & Sangakkara 30……

still…… Alastair Nathan Cook has cooked Indian geese at their own backyard ~ not many Captains have done that so meticulously.  Today, he did enjoy a reprieve when Ishant Sharma put down a sitter off his own ~ still he has completely dominated Indian bowling in what is turning out to be a golden tour for England.  He has batted for 24 hours now and does not  look  getting out to any bowler ~ and to think that the present English Captain is only 27…..

With this 100, Cook becomes  one of only five overseas batsmen to score three or more centuries in a series in India. Cook is also one of only 11 visiting batsmen to face over 1000 deliveries in a series in India.  Cook has now scored five centuries in his first five Tests as captain.

At the start of this Series, all of us hailed Ravichandran Ashwin,  who became the fastest Indian bowler to reach 50 wickets in Tests; after the first innings Ashwin has struggled so poorly that he has picked only 3 wickets after that conceding around 350 runs.  In his last four innings, R Ashwin has picked up three wickets and conceded 346 runs (average 115.33). However, in 16 innings prior to the second innings in Ahmedabad, Ashwin picked up 52 wickets at an average of 26.63.  After his run-away success against Kiwis and West Indies, Ashwin took 3/80 at Motera in the 1st innings.  After that he has figures of 1/111; 2/145; 0/22 and …. now wicketless still after conceding 138  runs

With regards – S. Sampathkumar

7^th Dec 2012 @ 14.15 hrs.