England captain Alastair Cook broke Sunil Gavaskar’s record of 9,607 for the most runs as a Test opener while making 81 against Pakistan at Lord’s on Friday.
The 31-year-old England captain had already become the youngest player in the history of cricket to score 10,000 test runs prior to breaking Sunny’s record, but 13 of his innings were not as an opener.
But he broke Gavaskar’s opening record when he cut Mohammad Amir for four in familiar fashion to go to 61.
Below is the record of Test cricket’s leading opening batsmen:
Player/Team | Career span | Matches | Not outs | Runs | Average | Hundreds |
Alastair Cook (Eng) | 2006- | 123 | 12 | 9630 | 46.52 | 26 |
Sunil Gavaskar (Ind) | 1971-1987 | 119 | 12 | 9607 | 50.29 | 33 |
Graeme Smith (ICC/RSA) | 2002-2014 | 114 | 12 | 9030 | 49.07 | 27 |
Mathew Hayden (Aus) | 1994-2009 | 103 | 14 | 8625 | 50.73 | 30 |
Virender Sehwag (ICC/Ind) | 2002-2013 | 99 | 6 | 8207 | 50.04 | 22 |
Geoffrey Boycott (Eng) | 1964-1982 | 107 | 23 | 8091 | 48.16 | 22 |
Graham Gooch (Eng) | 1978-1995 | 100 | 6 | 7811 | 43.88 | 18 |
Mark Taylor (Aus) | 1989-1999 | 104 | 13 | 7525 | 43.49 | 19 |
Gordon Greenidge (WI) | 1974-1991 | 107 | 16 | 7488 | 45.10 | 19 |
Mike Atherton (Eng) | 1990-2001 | 108 | 6 | 7476 | 39.14 | 16 |