ON THIS DAY: ALASTAIR COOK'S BRISBANE EPIC

Cook defies Australia in series opener

The Cricketer looks back on famous moments in Ashes history during England’s trip Down Under.

Today, Alastair Cook's Brisbane epic...

It is hard to fathom, knowing what we do now, seven years on, that Alastair Cook may not have walked out at Brisbane in 2010.

In the preceding summer he had amassed just 106 runs from eight innings before England took on Pakistan at The Oval. Would England have dropped him? We won’t know, but the questions over his technique and temperament were increasing. Again, something that seems incomprehensible 7,400 runs later.

Six in the first innings ramped up the pressure, but absorbing pressure is what Alastair Cook is all about. 110 - his 13th Test hundred - in the second innings dragged the opener out of a quagmire of poor form and propelled him into a streak of wolfish run-scoring.

And so, Cook did walk out at Brisbane. The opener had already batted for nearly five hours in England’s first innings and when he strolled out to the middle for their second, the tourists were staring down the barrel of a 221-run deficit.

_{WATCH: Cook defies Australia}

625 minutes later, Cook would have 235 unbeaten runs to his name and another epical innings to slot into his portfolio.

It helps of course that Mitchell Johnson was an embryonic shadow of his future self and the 2010 incarnation was bowling - to steal a phrase from Nasser - “wide filth”.

What’s going through his head out there? The calming sounds of Mozart? The gentle bleating of the sheep on his farm some 10,000 miles from Brisbane? The sublime, psychedelic beats and rhythms of the Grateful Dead reverberating through his sweat-less eardrums?

Whatever it is, there was something blocking out the grating sounds of a lager-soaked Brisbane cauldron. 

Cook is a man unmoved by the fog of war.

His career has been built largely on three simple ingredients: the cut, the pull, the flick off his pads. The cuts were out in force as were hard-cracked pull shots that echoed around the Gabba like cannon fire. But - amidst the more familiar repertoire - he allowed himself a little ecstasy, gallivanting down the wicket to attack Xavier Doherty when the opportunity presented itself.

^{Cook cuts en route to to his first double-hundred}

By the end records had fallen. His was the highest score by an England batsman since Graham Gooch’s 333 against India at Lord’s. It was the highest Test score at the Gabba, surpassing Sir Don Bradman’s 226 in 1931 (Michael Clarke's 259* against South Africa has since beaten it). The stand with Jonathan Trott - worth 329 - was the highest England partnership in Australia.

If you have ever seen a live recording of Neil Young, there are parallels in their performance.

Like Cook, Young seems to be a man in his own sphere. He could be performing in front of the world or to a barren wasteland but the result will be the same.

He too relies on a handful of mastered tools; a guitar, a harmonica, the piano and a hauntingly-fragile voice.

He takes those tools and bleeds them for everything they’ve got, and combined, they make him an artist of mesmerising, gritty and unyielding beauty.

Cook’s batting is rarely described as being beautiful, but look closely and it’s there.

Alastair Cook is Neil Young. We are just waiting for him to write his next understated masterpiece.

Words by Owen Riley | @Owen__Riley