Can Cook break the 12,000 barrier?

Looking at his stats, he's 27 and heading towards the prime of his career. He's already nearing 7000 and is in the form of his life. I know its early to say, and as we know batsmen go through some awful spells where they can't score a run, but if he carries on at an average of 40 even, surely he could get towards the record setters like Lara, Ponting and dare I say Sachin.

He should at his current rate, although three years ago I would have said Strauss will make 30 100s, but it took him three years to get from 18 to 21.

Certainly England's record books are already dominated by current and recent players. Largely because unlike previous eras their careers have not been interrupted by dodgy selection policies, rebel tours, World Series Cricket or wars.

This is certainly seen in terms of most Test hundreds for England:

22 Hammond, Cowdrey, Boycott
21 Strauss
20 Barrington, Pietersen
19 Hutton, Cook
18 Vaughan, Gower
17 Compton
16 Sutcliffe, Bell, Thorpe, Atherton

At their current rate Cook, Pietersen and Bell will be miles ahead by the end of their careers.

In terms of runs Strauss is 2000 runs away from becoming England's leading runscorer of all time. But that is still quite a lot of runs, and if he does get there Cook, Pietersen and Bell will surely pass him and ease past Gooch.

The fact that we are playing more Tests, and having less interrupted careers is highlighted by the fact that Strauss has more hundreds and only 2000 less runs in eight years than Gooch made in twenty. And they have almost identical averages.

I also think if Trescothick had still been playing he would be right up there in terms of runs scored and centuries made, such a shame. England's loss is Somerset's gain.

Shelsey93 wrote:He should at his current rate, although three years ago I would have said Strauss will make 30 100s, but it took him three years to get from 18 to 21.

Certainly England's record books are already dominated by current and recent players. Largely because unlike previous eras their careers have not been interrupted by dodgy selection policies, rebel tours, World Series Cricket or wars.

This is certainly seen in terms of most Test hundreds for England:

22 Hammond, Cowdrey, Boycott
21 Strauss
20 Barrington, Pietersen
19 Hutton, Cook
18 Vaughan, Gower
17 Compton
16 Sutcliffe, Bell, Thorpe, Atherton

At their current rate Cook, Pietersen and Bell will be miles ahead by the end of their careers.

In terms of runs Strauss is 1000 runs away from becoming England's leading runscorer of all time. But that is still quite a lot of runs, and if he does get there Cook, Pietersen and Bell will surely pass him and ease past Gooch.

The fact that we are playing more Tests, and having less interrupted careers is highlighted by the fact that Strauss has more hundreds and only 1000 less runs in eight years than Gooch made in twenty. And they have almost identical averages.

Are you implying then that Strauss is a better batsman than Gooch? Also the fact that England's record books are heavily dominated by current and recent players is more due to England playing more tests every year now than was the case before Sky took over coverage of cricket in 1990. I believe that there was an entire winter from the end of the 1975 season to the start of the 1976 season in which England didn't tour any country to play test cricket.

Not sure where some of these stats are coming from. Strauss is roughly 2000 behind Gooch in test runs scored and he wont make that up before he retires. Pietersen has a similar number and has a better chance, he should finish somewhere near the top of the current list, maybe pushing 10000 if he plays 4-5 more years with decent form.

Cook seems likely to pass all of the above by the time he is finished, but 12000 is a big ask. Extrapolation of his current statistics would tell you there is a good chance but it is still a long way off. I'd give him about a 70% chance of passing 10000 and maybe a 40% chance of passing 12000. By the way he is still closer to 6000 so to say "nearing 7000" is genourous.

Bell isn't yet at 6000 and he is now 30. He is the style of batsman who could go on to play into his late 30s but that sort of thing is impossible to predict. He has every chance of challenging somewhere around the 5 figure mark if he plays for a long time.

In terms of hundreds, Strauss is likely to finish somewhere mid 20s, Pietersen may reach 30 and Cook should go into the 30s, maybe 40 if he continues at the present rate. Bell is hard to predict, it'll depend how long he plays of course. Around 25 would probably be a safe prediction but if he plays longer he could get 30.

He has time on his side but I have my doubts.

In the last 5 years ( 60 months) Cook has scored just less than 5000 runs, He should be able to play at least until he is 32, which gives him another near 5000 runs in current form.

So yes chances are if he stays in the squad until 33 to 34 he will do it.

biltongbek wrote:In the last 5 years ( 60 months) Cook has scored just less than 5000 runs, He should be able to play at least until he is 32, which gives him another near 5000 runs in current form.

So yes chances are if he stays in the squad until 33 to 34 he will do it.

Bingo. And if he loses form or starts getting injured, then he won't! He looks the type that will be able to play into his late 30's if he still has the desire, so anything is possible....

gboycottnut wrote:

Are you implying then that Strauss is a better batsman than Gooch? Also the fact that England's record books are heavily dominated by current and recent players is more due to England playing more tests every year now than was the case before Sky took over coverage of cricket in 1990. I believe that there was an entire winter from the end of the 1975 season to the start of the 1976 season in which England didn't tour any country to play test cricket.

Merely highlighting the statistics. And I would argue that there isn't much between Gooch and Strauss as batsmen. Gooch will have had greater longevity, but Strauss will have played more crucial innings for his country and so will be remembered at least as fondly when his career was over - his two 100s in 2005, Lord's 100 in 2009, and a few others made a potentially massive difference to English cricket.

Also, the amount of cricket played by England isn't actually that different. England always played six home Tests and usually five-six away Tests in a year. As I hinted the difference is that this current crop seldom miss a Test, whilst the batsman of the '70s, '80s and '90s were shuffled out for poor form (often wrongly), banned for going on rebel tours, joined World Series Cricket and often got injured. Strauss and Cook have barely missed a Test in their entire careers - I think Strauss missed one for the birth of his child some years ago, and was rested in Bangladesh, whilst Cook missed what would have been his second Test in India because he was ill. But otherwise they have been ever-present.

For other countries, particularly India, obviously South Africa and also Pakistan, far more cricket is played than at any previous stage.

Ignore

Shelsey93 wrote:

gboycottnut wrote:

Are you implying then that Strauss is a better batsman than Gooch? Also the fact that England's record books are heavily dominated by current and recent players is more due to England playing more tests every year now than was the case before Sky took over coverage of cricket in 1990. I believe that there was an entire winter from the end of the 1975 season to the start of the 1976 season in which England didn't tour any country to play test cricket.

Merely highlighting the statistics. And I would argue that there isn't much between Gooch and Strauss as batsmen. Gooch will have had greater longevity, but Strauss will have played more crucial innings for his country and so will be remembered at least as fondly when his career was over - his two 100s in 2005, Lord's 100 in 2009, and a few others made a potentially massive difference to English cricket.

Also, the amount of cricket played by England isn't actually that different. England always played six home Tests and usually five-six away Tests in a year. As I hinted the difference is that this current crop seldom miss a Test, whilst the batsman of the '70s, '80s and '90s were shuffled out for poor form (often wrongly), banned for going on rebel tours, joined World Series Cricket and often got injured. Strauss and Cook have barely missed a Test in their entire careers - I think Strauss missed one for the birth of his child some years ago, and was rested in Bangladesh, whilst Cook missed what would have been his second Test in India because he was ill. But otherwise they have been ever-present.

For other countries, particularly India, obviously South Africa and also Pakistan, far more cricket is played than at any previous stage.

Gooch played one of the all time great knocks against the west Indies in 1991. Strauss is a good opener but Gooch was very good and a better player than Strauss for me.

12,000 for Cook? Well he's currently on 6356 runs so needs another 5644 runs which he could probably achieve if he goes on the way he is. So yes,, Cook can break the 12,000 barrier.

6356 + 5642 = 11998

Thanks for pointing that out.

Jeff is a math wizz.

I'd say that Cook is close to guaranteed to break the magical 10,000 barrier - as close to a guarantee as you can get in the crazy world of professional sport, at least. With his style and fitness, it's possible that he could have another decade as a test player. At the very least, you'd expect him to be an England regular for another seven or eight years, and providing he stays fit, that should see him comfortably past 10,000, probably 11,000 in fact.

Sign of the times. So much more test cricket is being played these days than it was back in the era of Gavaskar, Sobers etc. We're seeing the same with Chanderpaul - is it bad that I really, really don't want him to go past Lara's tally of 11,953 and claim the Windies record?

Chanderpaul is a brilliant player, wouldn't mind it at all.

A brilliant player, yes, but also a couple of classes below Lara, and nowhere near the match-winner that Lara was. I prefer to see records belong to players because they were amongst the elite, rather than for simply playing more, which would be the case should Chanderpaul go past Lara's tally.

Still a magnificent batsman, mind you.

I see your point but most test runs is all though a nice record is hardly a reflection on how good you are/were.

In years to come, I hope we don't see posters claiming Shiv (or Sachin ) was better than Lara because he had more runs than him.

How about Mark Boucher, he has 5515 runs, has played 147 tests, it seems he might just play till he is fifty.

Reckon he can make 10 000 runs?

biltongbek wrote:How about Mark Boucher, he has 5515 runs, has played 147 tests, it seems he might just play till he is fifty.

Reckon he can make 10 000 runs?

Only if England pick Patel

The point made about continuity of selection being reflected in the number of 100s/runs made by the current crop of England batsmen is a good one.
What made life particularly tough for the previous generation was the fact that we constantly shot ourselves in the foot by
1. Playing six-Test series against the strongest sides
2. Playing one Test roughly every three years against some of the weaker ones.
3. Having the tourists over for many weeks so they could be totally used to English pitches.
Cook, I think, is the best bet to make a really good number of runs/100s for England. Our stats - for the reasons above - are comparatively poor in terms of runs made and centuries scored in Test cricket. Happily, that's changing.

I have always thought that Cook would break Englands all time records for runs scored and centuries made, he may even get to 15,000 runs, if he's still first choice at 40 , but then again, just a few years ago bookies were only offering 4/6 on Michael Owen becoming Englands top scorer and 2/1 on him getting 60, lack of form and injuries can curtail any career.

he could get 14000