By BV Swagath
England’s reliable openers Andrew Strauss and Alastair Cook have created a combined record during the course of their partnership during the hosts’ run chase against the West Indies in the Nottingham Test. Strauss and Cook had taken their overall partnership tally in Tests past 5000 runs! The English pair are only the fifth in Test Cricket to put up a partnership of 5000 runs in Test Cricket.
The other pairs who have achieved this feat before Strauss and Cook are: West Indies’ Gordon Greenidge-Desmond Haynes, Australia’s Matt Hayden-Justin Langer, India’s Rahul Dravid-Sachin Tendulkar and Sri Lanka’s Mahela Jayawardene-Kumar Sangakkara.
Here are the five highest partnership runs accumulated by a pair batting together in Test Cricket:
Rahul Dravid and Sachin Tendulkar (of India): 6920 runs
Gordon Greenidge and Desmond Haynes (of West Indies): 6482 runs
Matthew Hayden/Justin Langer (of Australia): 6081 runs
Mahela Jayawardene/Kumar Sangakkara (of Sri Lanka): 5444* runs
Alastair Cook/Andrew Strauss (of England): 5085* runs