Alastair Cook is Relentless

Alastair Cook seems as though he is never satisfied. Even when making his first ever test 250 (and the becoming the first Englishman to make a test 250 for 21 years) he barely raised the bat to the crowd, thinking more about how he was going to score the next 250.

Alastair Cook loves batting, and he loves scoring runs. Everything he does appears to be on some sort of personal vendetta to score as many runs as he possibly can. He can never have enough runs. You can picture him in a future James Bond film as some sort of evil meglomaniac, constantly batting and refusing to get out, taking over the world by boring opponents to death whilst scoring millions of runs.

Some critics of Cook say that he can't pick up the rate and accelerate, which is sometimes needed when a declaration is in sight. But quite simply Cook sees no need to pick up the scoring rate - he's just happy scoring runs, and lots of them, and he'll try and score as many as he can. He knows that if he keeps making mountains of runs, England will keep winning test matches, and that what keeps pushing Cook on to keep going.

I don't like using the term run machine, but it's hard to give Cook any other title. He almost seems emotionless while at the crease, effortlessly switching between a heavy concentration and an automaton state of unawareness. The man doesn't even sweat, which just confirms the fact that he is clearly not human. In the film where Cook is the villain, he'd just keep coming at James Bond, no matter how many bullets are fired at him. Cook would just swat them away, with dabs into the on-side for singles to keep scoring runs. The film would only end after about 12 hours when Strauss has enough and decides to declare, but even then Cook would be unaware to what's happening around him; still focussing on scoring more runs.

Alastair Cook is an immense batsman, and will no doubt go down in history as one of England's greats - if not the best. Every successful team needs a player who is so set on scoring runs that failure is not an option; a cold hard ruthless killer who drills the opposition into the ground and demoralises them so completely that it doesn't seem to be a fair fight. Fortunately for England, they have Alastair Cook, who will continue to do that for quite a few years to come. Unfortunately for the rest of the world, they also have Jonathan Trott, who if anything, is even more relentless. Good luck, rest of the world. You're going to need it.