England opener hits first Ashes hundred since 2011
When Alastair Cook pulled Steve Smith for four in the final over of the day, it brought up three figures for the Englishman, ending a run of 2,547 days since his last Ashes hundred, when he scored 189 at the SCG in England’s final innings of the 2010/11 series.
The opener had gone ten innings without a fifty (a career-worst run) and was averaging 13.83 in the series with a top score of 37. It doesn’t take much for the hawks to put pen to paper and call for your head these days, even if you have an embarrassment of riches strewn across your cricketing curriculum vitae. England’s leading run-scorer is not immune to questions over his form.
But on day two, with a portly Melbourne scorcher of a sun and 67,882 fans beating down on him, Cook cut, pulled and punched his way out of a corner and lifted his team from the canvas of defeat.
It wasn’t a chanceless innings by any means. Australia have already been punished to the tune of 38 runs after Steve Smith, clawing at baking hot air and scuffed cherry-red leather, dropped Cook on 66. But nor was it a scrappy last-ditch bid for freedom.
The trademarks were all there; the dogged determination, the patience of a saint, his well-rehearsed repertoire of scoring strokes on full display with the added gloss of some glorious drives and punches down the ground.
Form can be a cruel mistress but class will always shine through. A reminder of the numbers: 151 Tests, 11,816 runs at 45.97, 32 Test hundreds and four doubles.
Day two marked his 32nd Test century, his fifth in Australia, one at each venue. All five Ashes grounds in the country have seen Cook raise his bat upon reaching three figures, the only England batsman to do so. Sunil Gavaskar is the only other overseas batsman to complete the set.
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Ricky Ponting discusses Cook's form after the Perth Test
Mahela Jayawaredene (11,814) became the latest to see Cook move ahead of him on the all-time leading Test run-scorers list. Cook is eighth on the list with Shivnarine Chanderpaul (11,867) next in his sights.
Of course England’s position is not down to Cook alone. With Australia 244 for three at the end of day one and their talismanic leader ominously placed to score a 23rd Test hundred, Root's men were not down and out, but Australia had them on the ropes once more.
A sapping effort by the bowlers on day one was backed up by a valiant display on day two. James Anderson passed Courtney Walsh’s tally of 519 Test wickets, Stuart Broad punched in his best figures (four for 51) of 2017 and Tom Curran took his first Test scalp, that of the Australian leader.
But Cook’s hundred is perhaps the most redemptive performance of the piece. He has repelled critics before by putting in herculean Ashes performances and here we are again.
Strip away all the cheap noise and Cook just keeps chugging along to his own beat. Like a vinyl record, such longevity is bound to result in the odd scratch, a skipped note, but it remains the richest and purest of all. Cook is a treasured vinyl in the age of MP3.
But as Cook’s understated acknowledgement of his century suggests, the task at hand is far from complete. England must do now, what they have not in the series so far. They must be ruthless.