History-maker Alastair Cook relieved as burden of reaching 10,000 Test runs is removed in England’s crushing nine-wicket win over Sri Lanka
England skipper Alastair Cook welcomed the burden being removed from his shoulders after becoming the youngest player to pass 10,000 Test runs in his side’s series-clinching nine-wicket demolition of Sri Lanka at Chester-le-Street yesterday.
Cook needed a total of five runs and reached the milestone with a leg-side clip for four as England comfortably chased down their victory target of 79 after Sri Lanka doggedly advanced their overnight score from 309-5 to 475 all out. Cook finished unbeaten on 47.
Sri Lanka wicketkeeper Dinesh Chandimal prolonged the inevitable with a stylish knock of 126, while Rangana Herath notched 61, as the tourists amassed their highest total of the tour, following previous paltry tallies of 91, 119 and 101.
Opener Cook, aged 31 years, five months and five days, assumed the status of the first Englishman to score 10,000 Test runs and overtook India great Sachin Tendulkar in becoming the youngest player to achieve the feat. Tendulkar’s record has stood since 2005.
“It’s a very special moment for me. The game is not about personal milestones, it’s about winning games of cricket for England and trying to score runs in order to do that,” said Cook, only the 12th player in history to score 10,000 Test runs.
“But there are little milestones along the way and it’s certainly driven me. To score 10,000 runs was one of those goals. It’s been a little bit on my shoulder, I won’t lie. Everybody has been telling me how many runs I need but it’s a really special day.
“I got the runs today but it’s those seven o’clock nets with Goochy [his mentor Graham Gooch], it’s all the hard work that goes on away from this stage which gets you there. You forget about all the hard times you have as a cricketer.
“It means a lot. Unfortunately, though, there are always questions to be asked and that’s the game of Test cricket and the next innings is the most important.”
England will progress to the third and final Test of this series at Lord’s, which starts on 9 June, with the same personnel having named an unchanged 12-man squad for the clash.
Cook, meanwhile, was not the only England player to pass a landmark as seamer James Anderson passed 450 Test scalps in snaring his latest five-wicket haul, which included the early removal of Milinda Siriwardana.
But Chandimal powered Sri Lanka’s resistance, which was aided by poor England fielding, and a succession of fluent stokes saw the 26-year-old record the sixth Test century of his career and first outside Asia.
Herath took a liking to sweeping and reverse sweeping Moeen Ali as he posted his second Test half-century before falling LBW to Anderson. Sri Lanka’s effort, however, meant England were in the field longer in the visitors’ second innings than in the rest of the series combined.
Cook’s opening partner Alex Hales was the sole casualty of England’s reply, bowled by Siriwardana for 11, while for the 11th consecutive occasion a Test match in England failed to reach the fifth day.