Alastair Cook picks Stuart Clark, Mohammad Asif and Mohammad Amir as toughest he's faced

What’s the story?

Former England captain Alastair Cook has named former Australia fast bowler Stuart Clark and Pakistan fast bowlers Mohammad Amir and Mohammad Asif as the toughest bowlers he has faced in his career.

These comments came on the eve of the first Test against South Africa at Lord’s, wherein Cook is playing not as captain for the first time in five years. The 32-year-old stepped down from captaincy after England’s 4-0 loss to India in November-December.

Cook has faced Clark across the Ashes series of 2007-08 and 2009, while he has been face-to-face with Mohammad Asif once – during Pakistan’s 2010 tour to England.

He has faced Mohammad Amir during Pakistan’s 2010 tour as well as the 2016 tour to the UK that were, incidentally, Amir’s tours either side of this five-year-long ban owing to his involvement in spot-fixing.

In case you didn’t know...

From 140 Tests, Cook has 11,057 runs at an average of 46.45 with 30 centuries and 53 half-centuries. He is currently 10^th on the list of the all-time top run-getters and is already England’s leading run-scorer in Tests.

He crossed the 10000-run mark last year during the Test series against Sri Lanka and had bettered Graham Gooch’s record for most Test runs for England – 8900 runs from 118 matches – in 2015.

Details

Clark had picked up Cook’s wicket five times in 14 innings in December 2006, while Cook managed to cross 50 only once out of those 14 face-offs. As far as the Pakistan duo is concerned, Cook against the pair of Amir and Asif on 7 occasions, being dismissed thrice each by both the bowlers.

During the 2016 series against Pakistan, Amir dismissed the then England captain twice in eight innings. However, Cook managed to score 423 runs from those eight innings at 60.42 with one century and three half-centuries.

Following Cook’s resignation from captaincy, Joe Root was appointed as the full-time England captain earlier this year and is leading England for the first time in the ongoing first Test against South Africa at Lord’s.

Author’s take

While Cook has faced several great fast bowlers in his career, including the likes of Glenn McGrath, Dale Steyn, and Shane Warne to name a few, this revelation has put to the fore how underrated Stuart Clark has been throughout his career.

In an injury-prone career, Clark picked up 94 wickets from 24 Tests at 23.86 and featured in the Ashes series of 2006-07 at home and the 2009 series in England.

His debut series fetched him 20 wickets from 3 Tests in South Africa at 15.86, and despite the fierce competition in the side for fast bowlers and the injuries he faced, the New South Wales bowler played for close to 10 years.

The 5^th Ashes Test of the 2009 series at the Kia Oval was Clark’s last.