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Alistair Cook - Under rated?

PostPosted: Mon May 30, 2016 3:45 pm
by The Professor
Alastair Cook 10,000 Test match runs:

- 12th batsman (all countries)
- 1st Englishman
- Youngest to reach the milestone

But will he be considered an England great?

Re: Alistair Cook - Under rated?

PostPosted: Mon May 30, 2016 5:42 pm
by Gingerfinch
He's 100% an England great. He'll probably go past 15,000 and beyond, giving him all time great justifications.

Not great to watch but runs are runs.

Re: Alistair Cook - Under rated?

PostPosted: Mon May 30, 2016 6:56 pm
by Dr Cricket
Posted this on another forum.
Not sure not outs would make a huge difference to the averages in a test match.
the biggest difference to the averages was that cook was an opener and they generally get out the most to low scores and the 2nd fact cook is probably the first player barring maybe Jayawardene that had quite a big technical fault.

Cook had 2 major barren spells where he struggled to score, the rest never had that barring their ends.
Tendulkars, Lara, Ponting, Dravid, Sanga etc never averaged or had a poor barren spell below 40 during their peaks if anything during their peaks their average 60-70s.

Cook low average is really down to those batting downs rather than the not outs.

even if Cook scores 15K+ runs no way should he be all time great.
All time greats don't have the technical issues Cooks has or poor barren spells like cook had in the past.

Jon Ethertige was spot on in twitter.
Cook's 10k a tribute to skill, longevity, avoidance of injury, determination & making most of his talent. V fine player, not all-time great.

Re: Alistair Cook - Under rated?

PostPosted: Mon May 30, 2016 7:01 pm
by Gingerfinch
He's definitely an all-time England great. We'll have to wait and see to see if he can be judged an all-time world great.

Re: Alistair Cook - Under rated?

PostPosted: Mon May 30, 2016 7:06 pm
by Dr Cricket
yeah is an english great, not sure he would be classed as an all time great although that would be subjective suspect he would always be questioned on that aspect.
people would either like him or not.

will be the greatest opener since the days of Gavaskar etc.

in my eyes cook would always be the oddest opener ever considering he from england and scored 10k runs yet as a technical flaw that makes opening look tough and makes him struggle when the ball moving and the ball pitched up.
Still baffled it took teams 6-7 years to work out his weakness.

Very mentally tough cricketer though, but by far the weakest batsman in the group of 10 000 runs.

Re: Alistair Cook - Under rated?

PostPosted: Mon May 30, 2016 7:09 pm
by dan08
Bit of a stupid question. Of course he is an England great.

Probably not an all-time world great but he's not too far away and should be able to get there.

Re: Alistair Cook - Under rated?

PostPosted: Mon May 30, 2016 8:04 pm
by Aidan11
Definitely an England great.

His record speaks for itself.

Re: Alistair Cook - Under rated?

PostPosted: Mon May 30, 2016 9:11 pm
by Making_Splinters
Cook's average is the wrong side of 50 to ever likely be considered one of the greatest batsmen of all time no matter how many runs he ends up getting.

In terms of English batsmen, he's a modern great, though again I'm not sure you can really claim to be the best of the best with an average lower than 50.

Re: Alistair Cook - Under rated?

PostPosted: Mon May 30, 2016 9:37 pm
by The Professor
dan08 wrote:Bit of a stupid question. Of course he is an England great.

Probably not an all-time world great but he's not too far away and should be able to get there.


In my opinion he's a stats man....has he ever been the 'greatest' player in the team...I would argue not.

He is like the ugly bloke he swoops I'm to pick up the worldie once all the handsome blokes have exhausted themselves.

Re: Alistair Cook - Under rated?

PostPosted: Mon May 30, 2016 11:50 pm
by braveneutral
England's Dravid but doesn't get appreciated as there isn't a Tendulkar, Sehwag or Ganguly.

Re: Alistair Cook - Under rated?

PostPosted: Mon May 30, 2016 11:52 pm
by braveneutral
Not that I appreciate him anywhere near the amount that I seem to suggest he should be appreciated.

Re: Alistair Cook - Under rated?

PostPosted: Tue May 31, 2016 12:19 am
by Arthur Crabtree
Of the 10000+ scorers, a few don't feel to be 'all time great' players. Perhaps Chanderpaul and Jayawardene. Ponting doesn't really do it for me as a Test great, but I'm a minority there. Cook, like them, doesn't seem to be an era defining bat, like Border, Waugh, SRT and BCL. He is very driven, but that's surely a given in this company. He scores low though on glamour/star quality, and the sort of character that impresses once he leaves the crease. Statisically he's quite strong, but not in this company, as he has easily the lowest average. He scores well for longevity. He scores average for legendary feats, in this company.

I suspect we know we won't remember him as a great because the case is always having to be made for him, every time from scratch. There is no real residual belief in his legendary status. He has left behind too few shared memories. Maybe if he gets his average over 50, he'll find a place in the collective history, through stats. But I suspect his record will fall away.

An England great? Again, I'm not sure. I rate Boycott and Gooch higher. And others have been greats of the game, like Hutton, Hobbs and Sutcliffe. I'd put Cook alongside Vaughan and Strauss.

Re: Alistair Cook - Under rated?

PostPosted: Tue May 31, 2016 3:20 am
by Arthur Crabtree
Sorry, that last paragraph was his standing among England openers. Forgot about Amiss again.

Generally, there is a bit of artificiality about a club of greats that starts at 10000. Why not 9000? Or 11000? Or perhaps more pertinently, why not 50 average plus? That's probably the club we think of, when we think of the stats of great players. Same as bowlers averaging under 22.

Re: Alistair Cook - Under rated?

PostPosted: Tue May 31, 2016 9:25 am
by Dr Cricket
Looks like John etheridge doesn't rate cook considering he written an article on who are the batting great and the ones below greatness day after cook scores 10,000 runs

Re: Alistair Cook - Under rated?

PostPosted: Tue May 31, 2016 9:36 am
by hopeforthebest
It's said that beauty is in the eye of the beholder, I rather think that goes for greatness as well. For me you cannot set a line above which someone is great and below which he's not great.