Chris Waters: Headingley now the likely setting for Alastair Cook to create slice of history

The England captain made 76 in the first innings and five in the second innings to finish 36 runs shy of becoming the 12th man in the game’s history to achieve the milestone.

Cook is now likely to get there in the first Test of the home summer against Sri Lanka at Headingley from May 19.

The Leeds venue was where he passed Graham Gooch’s record of 8,900 Test runs for England last summer, and it was also where he contemplated resigning the captaincy the previous year when his tactics were criticised in defeat to Sri Lanka.

Since that match against Sri Lanka in 2014, Cook has rediscovered his mojo as a captain and batsman.

He has improved tactically – even if it is widely accepted that he will never be another Mike Brearley – and he clearly has the respect of his players.

He has bounced back from the 5-0 drubbing in Australia in 
2013-14 to regain the Ashes and lead England to victory in the current series in South Africa.

It has been a remarkable feat of resilience by a man whose leadership was widely criticised by pundits and ex-players alike.

Cook, who was brilliantly caught and bowled yesterday by pace bowler Morne Morkel, who instinctively stuck out a right hand in his follow-through, has not had a good series with the bat by his own high standards.

A return of 184 runs in four Tests at 23 is clearly disappointing, but he no longer looks unsure where his next run is coming from, as he did at times when going almost two years without a Test hundred in between scoring 130 against New Zealand at Headingley in 2013 and 105 against West Indies at Bridgetown last year.

It was only two months ago, indeed, that Cook left the United Arab Emirates having finished leading run-scorer in the three-Test series against Pakistan, striking 450 runs at an average of 90.

That included an incredible innings of 263 in the first Test in Abu Dhabi, where Cook batted for 836 minutes to beat Len Hutton’s record for the longest innings by an Englishman in Test cricket.

Concentration, of course, is one of Cook’s greatest strengths, along with sheer bloody-mindedness and a refusal to yield.

He may have found runs difficult to come by in South Africa, but, aged 31, it remains entirely possible that he could one day overhaul Sachin Tendulkar’s Test record total of 15,921.

When Cook was struggling for form, the consensus was that his alignment at the crease was not quite correct.

His right foot was going over too far to the off side and he was playing across his front pad, but he has worked hard to address that and the focus instead has shifted to the lack of runs coming from his various opening partners.

As a captain, Cook may still be conservative in his methods – albeit not as conservative, apparently, as AB de Villiers, his opposite number in the present series.

De Villiers set England 382 to win at Centurion yesterday, a figure made to look suitably negative when the tourists ended the fourth day on a parlous 52-3.

To put that declaration into perspective, this is the 2,200th Test match and there have only been five higher winning totals.

Considering that South Africa were magnificently placed to gain a win that would see the series finish 2-1 in England’s favour, it was almost as though they were happier to settle for a draw.

One hears plenty of talk these days about Test cricket being under threat in a Twenty20 era, and what can be done to make the five-day format more interesting for spectators.

Consequently, we are witnessing experiments with day/night Tests and pink balls, and so on, but it is also incumbent on captains to play positive, attacking cricket whenever possible.

With the Centurion pitch offering plenty of assistance to the bowlers, and with the weather forecast indifferent, de Villiers appeared to be carrying traditional South African caution to the nth degree.

There would seem no chance of the tactic backfiring after England lost Cook, Alex Hales and Nick Compton last night, but, should it happen, it would be no more than de Villiers and South Africa would deserve.