Cook's 294, and other revivals

India had Alastair Cook figured out. At Lord's and Trent Bridge, they dismissed him for 12, 1, 2 and 5. Cook had been England's run robot, scoring 1156 runs in the Ashes and against Sri Lanka, but India had him under control. Or so they thought. Cook's retaliation at Edgbaston was a remorseless 294 that gave England the No. 1 ranking. His average of 5.00 in the first two Tests is among the lowest for a batsman who's bounced back from poor form with a double-century.

Gary Kirsten, who once did to Andy Zaltzman what Cook did to countless Indian fans, ended two sets of four poor innings with double-centuries. During England's tour of South Africa in 1999, Kirsten made 13, 15, 2 and 11 - averaging 10.25 in the series - before he walked out to bat on the third day at Kingsmead, with South Africa trailing by 210 in the follow-on. The match ended in a draw only when Kirsten was dismissed on the final day, after he had batted for 878 minutes - the second longest innings in Tests - and scored 275.

In 2001, after having begun the tour of West Indies with 150, Kirsten ended it with scores of 0, 0, 8, 9, 0 and 14. A trip to Harare was his next assignment and he scored 220 in the first Test, in only 442 minutes this time.

The unlikeliest double-hundreds in Test cricket perhaps belong to Jason Gillespie and Wasim Akram, both of whom achieved their career bests in their 71st Test. Gillespie had the third-lowest average - 15.64 - for a double-centurion, and his average in the 10 innings leading up to the unbeaten 201 in Mirpur was 12.66. Akram averaged only 14.47 in 20 innings before scoring an unbeaten 257 against Zimbabwe in Sheikhupura.

Adam Gilchrist's last four innings before the start of the 2001 Ashes read 0, 0, 1 and 1. He had been undone in two memorable contests in Kolkata and Chennai by India's spinners. At Edgbaston, however, Gilchrist found his form and scored a century in an innings-and-118-run victory. From averaging 0.50 in his previous two Tests to scoring 152 off 143 balls is as dramatic as turnarounds come.

John Reid scored six centuries during his career as a New Zealand allrounder. The first one came after two dire years of poor form. In 1952 and 1953, Reid played six Tests, against West Indies and South Africa, and did not make a double-figure score in 10 innings. His average during this period was 3.60. And then, in his next innings, at Newlands in 1954, Reid cracked 135 in 196 minutes and ended the drought.

Sachin Tendulkar took 78 ODIs to score his first hundred, against Australia at the Premadasa in 1994. And immediately after that, he was dismissed for a hat-trick of ducks for the first and only time in his 453-ODI career. The first was against Sri Lanka, in the final of the Singer World Series, in September 1994. The second and third were against West Indies in Faridabad and Mumbai. He followed up with 8 in Chennai, and so was averaging 2.00 in his previous four games when be began the home series against New Zealand with 115 in Vadodara.

The lowest average for a ten-innings stretch immediately preceding an ODI century belongs to Nathan Astle. He was dismissed for 4 in the final ODI against South Africa at Eden Park in 1999, andhad a poor World Cup in England, scoring only 79 runs in nine innings, bringing his average in 10 matches to 8.30. Astle's next ODI was in Rajkot in November and he scored a match-winning 120 against India.