Alastair Cook’s England career has had it’s ups and downs. He started off like a house on fire, then for about 2-3 years he was a bit like Graham Thorpe was (in his earlier career) when he kept getting to 70, 80, or 90 before chucking his wicket away.
Then for 18 months he went through a stage when he was absolute crap, before this golden 12 months in which he seems to have become England’s version of Matthew Hayden.
In the latter part of Hayden’s career when ever he got a century it always seemed to be a massive one – and lately that’s exactly what Alastair Cook has been doing.
I was delighted to see him get his three figures today, it would have been a bit of an injustice had he failed in this series, given the 12 months he has just had. He hasn’t totally had the rub of the green against India, with one or two questionable decisions also.
A hundred would also have been a nice monkey to get off Andrew Strauss’ back with the odd media vulture making an issue out of his century count lately, I don’t agree with criticism about his runs, but it’s the media driven world we live in these days. Hopefully his day will come at the Oval.
Am off to Edgbaston tomorrow. Expect England to throw the bat and declare or get bowled out, so should be entertaining. Then maybe I might get lucky and be treated to Sachin’s one hundredth hundred, who knows?
