In 2008 Cook averaged 47 against SA. Hardly poor. The only other time he has played against SA

Merit, hardwork and discilpline has won over nepotism and organizational power(BCCI Influence).

When was the last time the Indians lost a home series vs England?

I think Cook might be the only genuine 'great' that England have produced in the last 20 years.

I think likening him to Tendulka is a weird as they are not at all comparable players. But didnt Tendulka debut at 17 and passed 7000 at 28? Cook debut at 21 and passed it at 27?

"When was the last time the Indians lost a home series vs England? "
i think it was about 1984 - of course we did draw the series in 2004-5, Hoggard and Flintoff being our main bowlers i recall

Meant 2005-6

I think likening him to Tendulka is a weird as they are not at all comparable players. But didnt Tendulka debut at 17 and passed 7000 at 28? Cook debut at 21 and passed it at 27?
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You have to factor in the fact that Cook is an opener so will bat more in both innings and India are more obsessed with limited overs cricket than test cricket so will play less test cricket unlike England who focus more on tests.

not even that, england play more tests than any other country. look at how many tests england have polayed this year, and compare that to indias!!!!!

take gambhir who debuted at the same time as cook, and see how many tests he has played compared to cook.

but anyway, cant compare tendulkar with cook. tendulkar averaged 50+ for the almost 90% of his test career, cook has barely reached that even after having played over 80 tests

@ Viru: Averages are only really worth comparing once a player has retired. Given that they can go up and down quite dramatically over the course of a few games, it's more of an indicator of how they are playing at the moment.

I'll wait until they have both retired before I make my conclusion on who was better.

"england play more tests than any other country. look at how many tests england have polayed this year, and compare that to indias!!!!!"
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ah, yeee-s and so therefore it is even more remarkable how well Cook has done given that he is more prone to injury and tiredness by playing so many games.
Ridiculous argument

If Cook and KP were Indian then there average would be 54 minimum if you factor in that they play in England on cold overcast conditions on grassy green tracks. Look at Sehwag who gets a 50 average when his stats in England, NZ and SA are terrible.

...agreed Kash

Tendulkar is a great, us English are delighted we havea worldie for a change!

Indian selectors are not even reactive, the decline was apparent in English Summer 2011 yet they did not had the courage to introduce significant changes in personnel.Australia also underwent restructure phase after loss of some all time greats but their selectors were proactive and now they were very close of regaining top spot.

IMO, Asian selectors do not plan long term, they go only series-series which is fairly shortsighted.

He's still got a lot of Cricket to play in his career but he's certainly on the path to greatness if he carries on at this rate.

By the time he finishes he will have most probably broke most meaningful batting records barring a bad injury or huge dip in form of course. I like his attitude at the crease and his determination to make big scores and his game has come on leaps and bounds in the last few years, especially his shot making against spin.

He still has a bit to do to join Barrington, Compton and probably Hammond in the pantheon but he's on his way. Whether he will ever eclipse Hobbs and Hutton is difficult to say but for now we should just enjoy watching a world class opening batsman, it's been a while.

kash so u value someone who plays bounce and pace more than someone who can play spin????? surely they both have equal weightage, and the greats are the ones that can play in all conditions.

so someone like sehwag not able to perform outside subcontinent could be the same as someone like bell not being able to perform in the subcontinent.
or sangakkara who also scores majority of his 100s in the subcontinent conditions.

so dr u agree that playing more matches is hard cause u need to maintain the consistency, so that is what most indian fans have always said about tendulkar who has played both formats with the same consistency for 23 years.

"u agree that playing more matches is hard cause u need to maintain the consistency, so that is what most indian fans have always said about tendulkar who has played both formats with the same consistency for 23 years...."

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Ah but thats not what you SAID Virud, you actually said - and i quote - "england play more tests than any other country. look at how many tests england have played this year, and compare that to indias!!!!!"
so thats a different thing entirely. What you were saying there was that because Cook played more test matches he was going to score more test runs.
Kash has a point though and you missed it or ignored it - more runs get scored on the subcontinent than they do over here simply because the pitches are flatter, drier and give the bowler less help. You can't deny that. As an experiment though lets see how many runs are scored in THIS series compared to the one in England between these two countries

dr I know what I said, my point of cook scoring 7000runs in younger age is due to England playing more matches.

The point I mentioned about tendulkar playing for 23 years is for all the people that say if any other batsman played as much as tendulkar wud have better records which is clearly not true.

well yes people will score more runs in the subcontinent but u cannot devalue it cause when teams from SA, Aus and ENgland come to subcontinent, not all players are able to score runs, which clearly contradicts the fact that playing in the sub is easier and etc.

like in this series only cook has been consistent enough. KP had one gd innings, but we will get to know if he can do it again. same goes with all the UAE series.

Also lets not forget that some of the pitches in ENgland and Aus are flat as well. think about when Aus just scored 500+ in one day against SA. so the argumemnt that its easier to score in sub is easier than places like aus is not really valid.

Also u have to realise that batsman that have batted their whole lives in bouncy pitches and green tracks will obviously be better than lets say someone who played his whole life in subcontinent.

PS im not defending india in this series. this was just a general thing that feel about what people think about subcontinent.

Obviously england have outplayed india in the last 2 matches, and until we dont have major changes loses against aus, eng and SA is inevitable. Replacing umesh yadav for ishant wont work. he cant pick wickets on green tracks, how will he pick wickets on a flat track. same goes with ashwin who is using t20 tactics in tests.

Kohli is finding the transition between odis and tests very hard and if it carries on he will always need like 4-5 match to adjust and that will be too late.

in short i have reached a conclusion that IPL is the reoson for this decline. Players that are performing all over the world are the ones that dont play ipl. take clarke, amla, graeme smith and cook for example

viv scored 8,500 runs in 125 tests.

ie about 50% more tests than cook's played, and about 20% more runs.

actually, to put that stat into context, viv had a lot of DNB's due to windies winning by an innings

(it was 121 games as well)

whatever way you look at it though, cook's record is phenominal.

cook is the closest batsman that will break all test records. ther is no doubting that.

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