Batting for Britain...’Cook delivers spirit of success’

BATTING legend Alastair Cook epitomised the British values of calmly getting on with the job and delivering success, cricket-mad Theresa May said yesterday.

The Prime Minister told the Daily Express that she wrote to the England player, left, before his final Test match, where he ended a brilliant international career by scoring 147 runs against India at the Oval.

Resolute

Mrs May also said the country should do more to celebrate national success in every field.

“I wrote to him before the final test to thank him for what he’d done for British cricket,” she said, when asked about Cook’s final match of his glittering career.

“He’s been such a key and resolute figure.

“I thought it was great that he got that last century – almost a century and a half.

“He showed a very British temperament in what he was doing, which was to get on with it, to put his head down and deliver.

“We should celebrate success like that and say, ‘Good on you!’.”

The Prime Minister is a huge cricket fan who is often seen spending her spare moments at test matches.

She has also been a guest on the BBC’s Test Match Special programme.

Former choirboy Cook, 33, is England’s most-capped player. He captained the team in a record 59 Tests and 69 one-day internationals.

Known for his personal modesty, he is England’s leading Test match scorer and will continue to play county cricket for Essex following his retirement from the international game last week.

Before he became captain, Cook was the highest scorer in the 2010/11 Ashes series, notching up 766 runs, including three centuries, and spending a record 36 hours at the crease.