One of the best opening batsman Alastair Cook announced his retirement from international cricket on Monday. He said that the Oval Test against India will be his last match. He is one of the current England opening batsmen, has decided to retire after failing in the recent series. The 33-year-old Cook scored 12254 runs at an average of 44.88 in 289 innings of 160 Tests. It includes 32 centuries and 56 fifties. This left hander is considered as the best fielder of the slip. He has a total of 173 catches in his name.
Out of form Alastair Cook
However, this year, he has scored 298 runs in 9 Tests at an average of 18.62. And this the main reason behind this, and he decided to retire. Before this year 2014 was also not good for Cook too. He scored just 758 runs in 12 Tests at an average of 36.09. It included eight fifties. Due to this poor performance, the average England batsman dropped below 45 after 2010.
Cook debuted the test against India in Nagpur in March 2006 and will also play last match against India. He has scored century in his Test debut, he scored 60 runs in the first innings and 104 in the second innings. This year Cook only scored just one fifties in 2018. This is their worst performance after 2010. In the last 4 Tests, he is also not been able to score more than 30 runs at any one time. Cook has not been able to play for England in just one Test since March 2006. That test happened in Mumbai in March 2006. After this, he played 158 consecutive Tests.
Leading Test run-scorers
| Batsman | Runs | Avg | Tests |
| Sachin Tendulkar (Ind) | 15,921 | 53.78 | 200 |
| Ricky Ponting (Aus) | 13,378 | 51.85 | 168 |
| Jacques Kallis (SA) | 13,289 | 55.37 | 166 |
| Rahul Dravid (Ind) | 13,288 | 52.31 | 164 |
| Kumar Sangakkara (SL) | 12,400 | 57.4 | 134 |
| Alastair Cook (Eng) | 12,254 | 44.88 | 160 |
Reason behind why he was in team
In some portions of the British media, it is being said that there were two big reasons to keep him in the team so far. One he had the confidence of the selection committee along with captain root and coach. The Root has openly supported it to keep Cook in the team.
Second- England’s opening pair has been failing for a long time. Many options have been tried but so far Jennings or David Malan came out. The question was, in such a case, if the cook is taken out, then who will be brought back? Keaton Jennings also could not do anything special in this series.
However, now Cook’s replacement need to find by England.- In the past, Mike Gatting had said that it is better than with Cook’s failures to give a chance to a young man. Maybe he also failed but you can expect him to learn something in the future.
