Alastair Cook

Sir Alastair Nathan Cook CBE (born 25 December 1984) is an English former cricketer and former captain of the England Test and ODI teams. He is considered one of the greatest opening batsmen in Test cricket. Cook is the sixth-highest Test run scorer of all time and second-highest run scorer for England ever. He retired from Test cricket in September 2018 and played for Essex County Cricket Club in English domestic cricket until 2023, while also working for the BBC radio programme Test Match Special, between his commitments for Essex.

Cook is England's most-capped specialist test batsman and captained the England team in 59 Tests, as well as in 69 ODIs. He is the second highest run-scorer in Test matches for England, and the youngest player to score 12,000 Test runs (the sixth overall). Cook scored a record 33 Test centuries for England and is the first England player to win 50 Test matches. A left-handed opening batsman (the highest-scoring left-hander in Tests), he normally fielded at first slip.

Cook played for Essex's Academy and made his debut for the first XI in 2003. He played in several of England's youth teams from 2000 until his call up to the Test side in 2006. While touring in the West Indies with the ECB National Academy, Cook was called up to the England national team in India as a last-minute replacement for Marcus Trescothick and debuted, aged 21, with a century. He went on to score 1,000 runs in his maiden year and made centuries in his first Test matches against India, Pakistan, the West Indies and Bangladesh. Cook played a pivotal role in England winning the 2009 Ashes series, and, after deputising as Test captain in 2010 and then taking ODI captaincy full-time, in retaining the Ashes in 2010–11.

He was appointed captain of the Test team after Andrew Strauss's retirement on 29 August 2012. Cook captained England to its first Test series victory in India since 1984–85. During the tour he became the first captain to score a century in each of his first five Tests in charge. On 30 May 2015, Cook became the leading run-scorer in Test matches for England, surpassing Graham Gooch (8900). After England's 2016 tour of Bangladesh and India, he stepped down as Test captain. Cook retired from international cricket at the conclusion of the 2018 series against India, and from all forms of cricket in October 2023. Fellow former England captain Michael Vaughan wrote that "we will never see a batsman like Alastair Cook again" while cricket writer Scyld Berry wrote of "the four ways Alastair Cook stands out as England’s greatest... he embodied the virtues which English people traditionally value: stoicism, modesty and self-effacement, all tinged with humour."

Cook was appointed MBE in 2011 and promoted to CBE in 2016 for services to cricket. In the 2019 New Year Honours, Cook was appointed a Knight Bachelor for services to cricket.

On the occasion of England's 1000th Test in August 2018, Cook was named in the country's greatest Test XI by the ECB.