Stats: Alastair Cook joins Sachin and Dravid with 1000 Test runs against 7 teams
Thus he equalled the record of 1000 Test runs against most oppositions, jointly held by Indian players Sachin Tendulkar and Rahul Dravid.
Alastair Cook had a calm start in his first Test after stepping down as England’s Test captain scoring just 3 runs in the first innings. However, the England opener had a pretty good outing in the second innings as he scored an unbeaten fifty on day 3 and completed his 1000 Test runs against South Africa.
South Africa are the 7th opposition against whom Cook aggregates over 1000 runs in the Test cricket. He is yet to score 1000 runs in Tests against Bangladesh (490 runs) whereas he is yet to play against Zimbabwe in any format of International cricket.
Thus he equalled the record of 1000 Test runs against most oppositions, jointly held by Indian legends Sachin Tendulkar and Rahul Dravid. Cook has a decent chance to surpass the both Sachin and Dravid but England needs to play a handy number of games against Bangladesh and Cook has to feature in those before he retires.
So far, only Marvan Atapattu against Zimbabwe has scored over 1000 runs while Mahela Jayawardene, Kumar Sangakkara and Tillakaratne Dilshan have done it against Bangladesh. Sachin and Dravid missed out to complete the milestone against Zimbabwe by a whisker as they scored 979 and 918 runs respectively against them in Tests. Sachin also had a chance against Bangladesh as he scored 897 runs against them.
1000+ runs against most oppositions in Test cricket:
| Player | Team | Number of opponents |
| Rahul Dravid | India | 7 |
| Sachin Tendulkar | India | 7 |
| Alastair Cook | England | 7 |
| Mahela Jayawardene | Sri Lanka | 6 |
| Ricky Ponting | Australia | 6 |
| Shivnarine Chanderpaul | West Indies | 6 |
| Jaques Kallis | South Africa | 6 |
| Brian Lara | West Indies | 6 |
Jacques Kallis closely missed out against Sri Lanka as he could score only 894 runs vs them in 25 innings while Ricky Ponting’s margin was just 25 runs against Sri Lanka. Brian Lara managed to aggregate only 704 against New Zealand.
Chanderpaul had a chance of scoring 1000+ runs against 8 teams but ended up with getting past the mark only against 6 as he scored 986 runs and 897 runs over Pakistan and Bangladesh respectively. Though Jayawardene aggregated 1000 runs over Bangladesh, he failed to replicate that against West Indies (748) and Australia (969).
Players with 1000+ runs against 7 oppositions:
| Player | Team | Opposition | Matches | Inns | Runs | HS | Avg | 100s | 50s |
| Sachin Tendulkar | India | Australia | 39 | 74 | 3630 | 241* | 55 | 11 | 16 |
| England | 32 | 53 | 2535 | 193 | 51.73 | 7 | 13 | ||
| New Zealand | 24 | 39 | 1595 | 217 | 46.91 | 4 | 8 | ||
| Pakistan | 18 | 27 | 1057 | 194* | 42.28 | 2 | 7 | ||
| South Africa | 25 | 45 | 1741 | 169 | 42.46 | 7 | 5 | ||
| Sri Lanka | 25 | 36 | 1995 | 203 | 60.45 | 9 | 6 | ||
| West Indies | 21 | 32 | 1630 | 179 | 54.33 | 3 | 10 | ||
| Rahul Dravid | India | Australia | 33 | 62 | 2166 | 233 | 38.67 | 2 | 13 |
| England | 21 | 37 | 1950 | 217 | 60.93 | 7 | 8 | ||
| New Zealand | 15 | 28 | 1659 | 222 | 63.8 | 6 | 6 | ||
| Pakistan | 15 | 26 | 1236 | 270 | 53.73 | 5 | 3 | ||
| South Africa | 21 | 40 | 1252 | 148 | 33.83 | 2 | 5 | ||
| Sri Lanka | 20 | 32 | 1508 | 177 | 48.64 | 3 | 9 | ||
| West Indies | 23 | 38 | 1978 | 146 | 63.8 | 5 | 13 | ||
| Alastair Cook | England | Australia | 30 | 55 | 2117 | 235* | 39.2 | 4 | 11 |
| India | 25 | 45 | 2104 | 294 | 50.09 | 6 | 8 | ||
| New Zealand | 13 | 23 | 1024 | 162 | 44.52 | 3 | 4 | ||
| Pakistan | 18 | 33 | 1602 | 263 | 50.06 | 5 | 7 | ||
| South Africa | 16* | 30* | 1057* | 118 | 36.44* | 2 | 8* | ||
| Sri Lanka | 16 | 28 | 1290 | 133 | 53.75 | 3 | 7 | ||
| West Indies | 17 | 30 | 1435 | 160 | 57.4 | 5 | 8 |
(Stats as on July 8, 2017)
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