Ashes: Cricket fraternity lauds Alastair Cook’s fighting double ton on social media

Alastair Cook scored the fifth double hundred of his career, against Australia in the fourth Ashes Test at the Melbourne Cricket Ground on Thursday.

Former England skipper Alastair Cook batted throughout the third day of the ongoing fourth Ashes Test against Australia to remain unbeaten on 244. This was Cook’s fifth double hundred in Test cricket. (Scoreboard)

England's Alastair Cook celebrates after reaching his double century during the third day of the fourth Ashes Test against Australia. (Reuters)

During his knock, he went past Mahela Jayawardene, Shivnarine Chanderpaul and Brian Lara in the list of all-time Test runs.

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With an aggregate of 11,956 runs, he has now become the sixth highest run-getter in the history of Test cricket behind Kumar Sangakkara (12,400), Rahul Dravid (13,288), Jacques Kallis (13,289), Ricky Ponting (13,378) and Sachin Tendulkar (15921).

Cook, who came into the match with only 83 runs in the last three games, is England’s leading run-scorer in the series.

The opener, who completed his 32nd Test hundred on Wednesday, continued to concentrate hard on Thursday and eventually reached his second double hundred on Australian soil. This also made him the third visiting batsman after Wally Hammond and Brian Lara to score two double centuries in Australia.

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Cook’s double hundred was hailed in the cricketing fraternity. While former teammate James Taylor dubbed him one of the mentally toughest cricketers, former Australian captain and Ashes rival Michael Clarke termed his knock a brilliant one.

Cook’s ability to play a marathon knock with nonchalance also gave opportunities to net users to create memes on it.

Riding on Cook’s monumental knock, England finished the third day at 491/9. They now lead Australia by 164 runs in the first innings.

Though the Ashes series is already gone from their grasp, Cook’s innings has now given them a chance to push for a face saving victory in the Boxing Day Test.