Who said what: World bids adieu to Alastair Cook, the legend who signed off his Test career in style

What's the news?

Alastair Cook is undoubtedly one of the greatest batsmen the world has ever seen and today, the world has seen his last performance with the bat. The left-handed maestro scored 147 runs his final innings and went onto become the fifth batsman to score a century in the first and last matches of Test career.

Even in the first innings of the Test match, Cook scored a half-century, which helped his side to get a first innings lead of 40 runs. In total, the southpaw scored 218 runs in his final Test match.

In case you didn't know:

England have already won the Test series 3-1 and Cook announced his retirement in the aftermath of the series victory. He has now played his final Test at the Kennington Oval and will be looking forward to enjoying his life off the field.

The 33-year-old batsman did not have a great series till now but has brought back his A-game for his final Test. In the first innings, he scored 71 and he followed it with a big hundred in the second innings. His 259-run partnership with Joe Root has put England in a position of complete dominance in the final Test.

Heart of the matter:

Alastair Cook has been a regular opener in the English Test side since he made his debut. In 161 matches, the southpaw scored 12472 runs his illustrious Test career spanning over twelve years. In addition to that, he also played 92 ODI games for England in which he scored 3204 runs.

Cook has been a consistent performer for the English side in the longest format of the game. With this hundred, his tally of centuries is now 33 in addition to the 57 half-centuries notched up by him.

Final say:

The retirement of Cook will definitely leave a big void in the English Test. It will be a tough task for England to find a replacement soon. Before going to that, let us be thankful for incredible work done by Alastair Cook to popularise the game of cricket.

As Cook played his final innings, world thanks him for all the memories he created:

Theresa May:

Micheal Vaughan:

Aakash Chopra:

Russel Arnold:

Saqlain Mushtaq:

Harsha Bhogle:

Sanjay Majrekar:

Tom Moody:

Piers Morgan:

Mick Jagger:

Wahab Riaz:

Mel Jones:

Dimuth Karunaratne:

Boria Majumdar:

James Pierce:

Mohammad Kaif: