13 hours 56 minutes
Cook plays the longest England innings of all time
ALASTAIR COOK made history here yesterday with the longest-ever innings by an Englishman in 138 years of Test cricket.
The England captain’s marathon innings of 263 lasted a mammoth 836 minutes, eclipsing Len Hutton’s record of 797 minutes against Australia at The Oval in 1938.
Cook is also now the only player to have two scores in England’s all-time top 10 — along with his 294 against India at Edgbaston in 2011.
On and on he marched, longer than all bar two men have ever spent batting in a Test innings. Goodness, he even batted for longer than it took the whole of last summer’s fourth Ashes Test at Trent Bridge to take place.
Cook just kept rolling relentlessly on for close to 14 hours in extreme heat in this first Test before a controversial end yesterday to one of the most extraordinary innings ever played by an England batsman.
Forget the justifiable complaints that this Abu Dhabi Test has been a monumental bore for those raised in an impatient, modern, Twenty20-driven age.
Forget for now even the valid argument that dead pitches like this at the Sheikh Zayed Stadium are damaging for the health of the ultimate game.
Instead, savour an incredible display of stamina, concentration, application, patience and skill from an England captain who looked like he could bat for ever until, quite out of the blue, he top-edged an attempted sweep and was gone.
Not that he should have been given out. Replays showed that Shoaib Malik overstepped as he delivered his fateful ball, dragging his heel back into the crease as he bowled, but somehow umpire Paul Reiffel inexplicably failed to spot the no-ball. Unforgivable.
It brought a highly unsatisfactory end to a monumental display, an innings that this first Test will always be remembered for even if, as it probably will, it fizzles out to the tamest of draws today.
Only Hanif Mohammad on 970 minutes and Gary Kirsten on 878 have ever spent more time at the crease in a single Test innings than Cook did i n batting f or 836 minutes for his 263, a performance that eliminated any possibility of an England defeat here.
If it were not for the half-hour Cook spent being treated for a hand injury on the first day, he would have been on the field for the entire Test until his demise yesterday in some of the most demanding conditions in cricket.
It says everything about Cook’s temperament that he was annoyed more than satisfied when he scored 294 against India at Edgbaston four years ago and vowed never again to play a loose shot if he got so close to such a landmark.
Well, he had eliminated almost all risk, played within his comfort zone and relied on a temperament that belongs in a bygone age when Tests of this pace were commonplace rather than an exception in moving to within 37 of 300.
So he will be furious that he again missed out on emulating his mentor Graham Gooch in scoring a triple Test century.
There were the odd hints at mortality. Cook was reprieved on 173 yesterday when his inside edge off the deserving Wahab Riaz evaded a diving Sarfraz Ahmed to add to the desperately close lbw shout and drop on the third day. And, remember, he almost handled in defending his own stumps off his second ball.
How Pakistan must have wished Cook, who had spent 11 hours in the Abu Dhabi heat leading his side’s quest for wickets before he even picked up a bat, had gone through with that aberration and been dismissed in a freak manner. Instead, he l ed his side to a position where, at 569 for eight with a lead of 46 with two wickets left, they just might put Pakistan under pressure on the last day if they can take early wickets and instigate a little panic.
Only when Malik bowled Ben Stokes for 57 and then added the prize scalp of Cook, before Zulfiqar Babar finally gained reward for 70 overs of hard work by dismissing Jos Buttler for 23, did spin count for wickets so far in this Test.
England will now do better in this series than when they were thrashed 3-0 here almost four years ago.