Alastair Cook

ANALYSIS
Playing his final match of his Test career, he closed the book the same way it started-a half-century and then a century against India. In between those perfect bookends came 12,000-odd runs, fifth place on the all-time Test run leaderboard (jumping Kumar Sangakkara in the second innings), an average above 45 and was England's longest-serving Test-captain at 59 matches. It was fitting Cook closed his career in partnership with Joe Root, the current Test captain, for a match-defining 259 run third wicket partnership to put England firmly in the ascendancy.