Former England captain Alastair Cook has been given knighthood in Queen’s New Year’s Honours list for his services to England cricket.
Cook is the 11th English cricketer to be knighted. All-round great Ian Botham was the previous England cricketer to be knighted – 11 years ago.
Besides, former England women’s World Cup winning player Enid Bakewell received an MBE. Former West Indian cricketer Alvin Kallicharan and cricket expert Peter Wyne-Thomas have been recognised with a British Empire medal.
“The statistics across that time tell the story of his special ability – as do the winners’ medals and Ashes trophies – but he is also someone who’s been a great role model for our sport,” said England and Wales Cricket Board chairman Colin Graves, who led the praise for Cook.
“We’re very fortunate to have had Alastair in English cricket and we’re very grateful for his contributions to the game.”
Cook, who turned 34 on Christmas Day, retired from international cricket earlier this year. He made 71 and 147 in his final Test against India at The Oval. In 2006, he scored a debut hundred in Nagpur. He is only the fifth player to score hundreds in debut Test and farewell Test. Cook served as England’s captain in 59 Tests, the longest run for the country. He won two Ashes series over Australia as skipper. He stepped down from the post in February this year. The left-handed batsman ended up as being England’s all-time leading run-scorer in Tests – 12472 runs in 161 Test matches (291 innings) at an average of 45.35 including 33 centuries. He carried the bat to a then record 244* in MCG Test against Australia last year, the record which was recently taken over by New Zealand’s Tom Latham (265*).
