• First Test,day four: Pakistan 523-8 dec, England 569-8
• Captain lasted 836 minutes as match edges towards drawThomas Edison described genius as 1% inspiration and 99% perspiration, and so where this leaves the Man Who Doesn’t Sweat is anyone’s guess. Alastair Cook’s genius lies not in the thunderous strokes,the pyrotechnic displays that can turn a match on its head. Instead it is enshrined in a capacity for unwavering concentration, for hour after hour; in the stamina to preserve this in alien conditions where the sun beats down relentlessly; and for the ability to have a game procedure and stick to it with a puritan rigidity.
Having batted through the entire third day, or Cook,on the fourth, batted on and on until the day had almost drawn to a close, or scratching his guard,walking his walk to square leg between deliveries to settle his intellect. By then he had spent longer at the crease than any man in the game’s history apart from the South African opener Gary Kirsten and, way beyond that of the original Little Master, or Hanif Mohammad. Then Cook tried to sweep the offspin of Shoaib Malik,a shot he had played seemingly countless times over the past two days. This time, he got the gentlest of top edges which carried to short fine leg. Cook was gone. He left the field looking no more bedraggled than he had at the start, and whether a little peeved that he had not been able to surpass his own best of 294 against India at Edgbaston in 2011.
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Source: theguardian.com