Alastair Cook
Alastair Nathan Cook was born on the 25th December, 1984, in Gloucester and is an English cricketer who plays for Essex.
Cook is a left-handed batsman who was schooled at Bedford, where he started playing for the school's First XI at a young age. Each year he improved and in 2003 he scored 1287 runs for the school with an incredible average of 160.87.
Alastair Cook continued this form and took it into the U19 World Cup, in Bangladesh, where he captained England. He set an excellent example scoring two centuries on the way to the semi-finals.
In 2005, he became a regular in the Essex team, and proved himself by keeping up his brilliant batting form. Cook received a great deal of support and training from former Essex and England opener Graham Gooch. He finished with an average of 52.35, hitting 5 centuries and even reached 195 on one occasion, throughout a season in which he was reliable and consistent.
In August that year Alastair Cook was awarded Young Cricketer of the Year by the Cricket Writer's Club and was given Young Player of the Year by the Professional Cricketer's Association.
Later that year Alastair Cook was called up in place of the injured Michael Vaughan to face Pakistan but didn’t really figure.
In the 2006 season Cook was called up again for the injured England captain - this time to play against India in the first test and he played a major part.
He second top-scored in the first innings in Nagpur with 60 runs but in the second innings he became the 15th Englishman to hit a century on their test debut, a list headed by W.G.Grace.
Alastair Cook also did well in his first Test on home soil, making 89 at Lords in England's first Test against Sri Lanka in May 2006.
Cook scored another century in England's first Test against Pakistan in 2006 notching up 105 from 279 balls and then followed up with 127 in the first innings of the second Test.
In September 2006, Alastair Cook was named the Young Player of the Year for the second time in a row.
Alastair Cook biography by Ben Rosenbaum
Help us to keep Biogs free, please fill out this quick anonymous survey.