Alastair Cook's latest match-winning century made it five matches in a row when an England opener has reached three figures in an ODI. The captain, along with Ian Bell and the now-retired Pietersen have made a remarkable sequence, and one which can have been beaten rarely of at all.
In fact, only 21 England players have ever made hundreds as opening batsmen since one-day internationals began forty years ago. Cook has done it five times now, all bar one within the past twelve months, and two of them in successive games against Pakistan earlier this year. The Test skipper, Andrew Strauss has also struck five ODI centuries from the front. Of these, remarkably three were scores of 150+, two of them against Bangladesh. The best of the lot was that magnificent 158 in the World Cup tie against India in 2011.
Also on five is Nick Knight, a regular opener back in the late '90s. He never quite made it in Test cricket but the Essex and Warwickshire man was a great strokemaker who never seemed to rush. Averaging over 40 in his 100 games showed he was one of the best in the business for several years. Like Cook, he once scored hundreds not just in consecutive games but on successive days. In 1996, his 113 against Pakistan at Edgbaston was followed immediately by his carrying his bat for 125 when he ran out of partners in a run chase.
Throughout the 1980s, Graham Gooch always seemed to be there opening the batting with AN Other (Boycott, Stewart, Knight, Broad, etc, etc), white helmet gleaming and black moustache bristling. In 122 one-day innings, he accumulated 8 hundreds, six of them in a winning cause and four against Australia. At the start of his career, ODIs tended to be 55 overs aside before the innings were shortened. One of his best was an undefeated 129 in 118 balls in he West Indies 26 years ago. The run chase was timed perfectly, if nail-bitingly, to win off the last ball. What was even remarkable was that this was achieved against the mighty Malcolm Marshall and Joel Garner, who collectively conceded 121 runs in 19 overs, profligacy almost unheard of in those days!
However, one England opener stands tall and proud ahead of all other English openers, just as he does now. Well, he would if his ankle was fully healed! Marcus Trescothick achieved three-figure scores no fewer than 12 times at a rate of almost one in ten innings. That's a ratio bettered by very few top players in the world (De Villiers, Tendulkar and Kohli) and it brings home how he has been greatly missed by England in the last six years. Curiously his four highest innings were each scored in a losing cause as nobody could stay with him. It wasn't a matter of slow scoring on his part, either, because his career strike rate was around 85, better than the likes of Ponting, Gibbs and even Chris Gayle!
Tres hit hundreds against all the top nations apart from New Zealand, with Ireland thrown in for good measure, Against South Africa in 2003, he was one of both openers to complete centuries in the same match (Vikram Solanki was the other) but his highest was 137 out of a total of 240 against Pakistan at Lord's in 2001, where his side lost tantalisingly by just two runs. He was out to a slog sweep going for the winning six, caught by a certain 21 year-old Shahid Afridi. Whatever happened to him?! We can only imagine how many more tons 'Banger' would have crashed in the England cause, but the current left-handed opener, Cook, will almost certainly overhaul the Somerset man in the next few years. He has played a mere 47 ODIs and, provided injury or sudden loss of form don't intervene, he will be up there with the world's best. Sachin is unassailable and Jayasuriya probably out of reach (28 hundreds as opener, but in more than 400 matches) but Saeed Anwar (20), Ganguly and Gayle (19 apiece) are there for the taking.
