Alastair Cook marks 3rd century in this edition of Royal One-Day Cup

The winner of the first semi-final of the Royal London One-Day Cup at Chelmsford will play either Worcestershire or Surrey in the final at Lord’s on July 1. This match was the perfect way to cure the hangover of England’s departure from the Champions Trophy. More so because there were plenty of big guns like Alastair Cook on the show, and it was expected to be a run-fest.

News from the middle was that Essex won the toss and decided to bat first. Alex Hales and Jake Ball returned to the Nottinghamshire side following England’s exit from the Champions Trophy.

England’s record Test run-scorer Alastair Cook was expected to open the batting for Essex shortly. Cook has scored more than 500 runs in the eight group matches. Though we should’ve seen it coming but who really knew that Chef was about to provide the spectators with a treat today?

Great form coupled with pure timing from the former England skipper saw him register his 12th List A century today. At a cracking strike-rate of 140, the left-hander put up a display with some beautiful strokeplay, mixed with his dreamy cover drive over the ropes and he simply whipped away everything straight.

The Nottinghamshire bowlers were given no chance by Varun Chopra and Cook in the initial overs and it became hard from them to contain the runs. It was only in the 14th overs that James Pattinson bowled a rare tight over for the side, following which Chopra was dismissed in the next over by Steven Mullaney. He nicked one behind to Chris Read which was firing in outside off stump, but it turns out that it was an unlucky dismissal. According to the replays, he didn’t actually edge that behind.

Return to England ODI team

With temporary support from T Westley (33) and Ravi Bopara (16), the game was all Alastair Cool. Some viewers were even starting to contemplate the chances of him returning to the England ODI side to opening again. Though that ship may have sailed long ago, you never know if he may have been useful on Wednesday against Pakistan.

As Cook became the leading run-scorer in the competition with 636 under his belt, the calls for him to return to the England one-day fold got louder, a comment on BBC’s live commentary read, “Let’s say Alastair Cook picks his scoring rate up in one-day cricket over the next season while playing for Essex, is the door shut on his England chances?”

Though his fine innings came to an end on 133, just four short of equalling his best one-day innings, as he tried to clear the ropes off Samit Patel with a slog sweep, the damage for the Notts was done. Essex were 276/4 when he fell and there were 7 overs still to go.

From ball one, the former England captain looked in command and dominated the innings. Below is the four down the ground off Stuart Broad that completed his 95-ball century in the 30th over.

1️⃣0️⃣0️⃣ for Chef! Brought up with a four off a certain Stuart Broad. What a knock ?

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— One-Day Cup (@OneDayCup) June 16, 2017