Stats: Alastair Cook scores a century in his final Test match

Alastair Cook bid farewell to international cricket in epic style as he scored a century in his final outing with the bat. He missed an opportunity of scoring a century in the first innings as he got out for 71 on the opening day of this game. However, Cook didn’t let the chance go again as he was batting at his best with an unbeaten ton before going into the Lunch interval. He shared a double century stand with his skipper Joe Root who also got to a hundred.

Cook had only one fifty this year coming into the game but better his previous highest Test of the year twice in this match. The England opener had a similar start to his Test career when he faced India in his debut game in Nagpur. He scored a 60 in his maiden innings and followed it with an unbeaten 104 in the second. By scoring fifty-plus in both innings of his maiden and final Test matches, Cook became only the 2nd player after South Africa’s Bruce Mitchell to achieve the feat.

Century in the first and the last match of Test career:

Alastair Cook, with centuries in both maiden and final matches, became only the 5th player and the first from England in the history of Test history to do that. Australia’s Reginald Duff, Bill Ponsford and Greg Chappell were the first three to enter the list. India’s Mohammad Azharuddin scored centuries in his first match and in his 99th match, which was also the final match of his Test career.

Cook is overall the 12th England player to score a century in his final Test. The last one to be a part of the list was Nasser Hussain, who scored an unbeaten 103 in his final appearance for England in the 2004 Lord’s Test against New Zealand. Among the 12 England players to have got a century in the final Test, Jack Russell is the only one to score centuries in both innings. He scored 140 and 111 respectively in his final Test in 1923 against South Africa in Durban.

England players to have scored a century in their final Test match:

(Stats as on September 10, 2018)

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