Cricket: Alastair Cook reaches 10,000 Test runs to break record set by Sachin Tendulkar

England captain Alastair Cook leaves the field after defeating Sri Lanka in their second test. Photo / Getty Images

Alastair Cook on Monday became the youngest ever player to reach 10,000 Test runs.
Aged 31 years and five months, the England captain has beaten the great Sachin Tendulkar's record by five months.

The milestone has come in Cook's 127th Test in a career which has seen him become England's highest Test run scorer, notching 28 centuries along the way.

It all began for Cook with a century on debut against India in Nagpur in March 2006 - a match in which the 'Little Master' Tendulkar was also playing.

Given his age and the amount of cricket played these days it is not beyond the realms of possibility that Cook will one day surpass Tendulkar's Test record of 15,921 runs.

Cook is currently 12th on the all-time list but will surely break into the top 10 before too long and, at the rate he is going, would reach Tendulkar's total by the age of 37.

All that being said, however, Cook has a very long way to go to being held in the same regard as Tendulkar.

The two contrasting batsman - Cook a tall, stubborn, left-handed opener and Tendulkar a short, elegant, middle-order player - have reached the 10,000 landmark in very different ways.

While Cook has broken Tendulkar's record, he has taken 12 more Tests and 43 more innings than Sachin did to reach 10,000 runs. Tendulkar's average at the time 57.39, while Cook's before the start of this Test was 46.56.

Will Cook go down as a better batsman then Tendulkar? No. Will he break more of his records? Yes. That, in a nutshell, sums up the character of England's Mr Reliable.