The 31-year-old England captain had already become the youngest player in the history of cricket to score 10,000 Test runs 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.
Most runs as a Test opener (player, team (s), career span, matches, innings, not outs, runs, highest score, average, hundreds, fifties, noughts):
Alastair Cook (ENG) 2006- 123 219 12 9630 294 46.52 26 47 8
Sunil Gavaskar (IND) 1971-1987 119 203 12 9607 221 50.29 33 42 11
Graeme Smith (ICC/RSA) 2002-2014 114 196 12 9030 277 49.07 27 36 11
Matthew Hayen (AUS) 1994-2009 103 184 14 8625 380 50.73 30 29 14
Virender Sehwag (ICC/IND) 2002-2013 99 170 6 8207 319 50.04 22 30 15
Geoffrey Boycott (ENG) 1964-1982 107 191 23 8091 246no 48.16 22 42 10
Graham Gooch (ENG) 1978-1995 100 184 6 7811 333 43.88 18 41 9
Mark Taylor (AUS) 1989-1999 104 186 13 7525 334no 43.49 19 40 5
Gordon Greenidge (WIS) 1974-1991 107 182 16 7488 226 45.10 19 34 11
Mike Atherton (ENG) 1990-2001 108 197 6 7476 185no 39.14 16 45 17
