The eleven sixes of Alastair Cook

There has been, broadly appropriately, a vast outpouring of thoughts on Alastair Cook's last day of cricket. I have little to add to the general analysis, so I just want to talk about seeing him hit a six.

To appreciate how rare it was, it should be noted that in making 12,472 test runs, he has made precisely 11 sixes. almost all of the other great test accumulators have hit fifty or more (Sangakkara - his closest comparator - has exactly 51). Even Dravid made 21. Gilchrist has the record with 100. The only major run scorer who has fewer sixes is Boycott, who only managed eight. And as a proportion of runs, even he out-sixes Cook.

I saw Cook's last six, against Sri Lanka at Lord's in June 2016. One of only three in England. The only one scored in the second half of his career (this is slightly misleading, eight of those sixes came in a short period 2010-12). A freakish result.

I thought at one point that there was a book in it, on the evolution of big hitting. It would have helped that they are remarkably evenly shared - scored against all of the major test opponents save Pakistan. Regardless, I don't have time. Anyway, here is the list:

13 March 2008. vs NZ, Wellington. 60 runs (W). b. Martin
26 Feb 2009. vs WI, Bridgetown. 94 (D). b. Benn
12 March 2010. vs Bangladesh, Chittagong. 173 (W). b. Shakib Al Hasa
12 March 2010. vs Bangladesh, Chittagong. 173 (W). b. Madmudullah
15 Dec 2010. vs Australia, Perth. 32 (L). b. Harris
19 Jul 2012. vs South Africa, Oval. 115 (L). b. Steyn
2 Aug 2012. vs South Africa, Headingley. 46 (D). b. Duminy
23 Nov 2012. vs India, Mumbai. 122 (W). b. Ojha
5 Dec 2012. vs India, Kolkata. 190 (W). b. Ashwin
5 Dec 2012. vs India, Kolkata. 190 (W). b. Ashwin
9 Jun 2016. vs Sri Lanka, Lord's, 49* (D). b. Eranga

No-one will ever bat like that again.

Yuste

We went to see King Lear earlier this week. I've not seen it before - I don't really know why - and I loved it (both production and play). I had two reflections. Firstly, on Jacobitism: there must be a book on the staging of Shakespeare, but I assume that Lear wasn't ever staged at all between 1688 and at least 1715.  The themes of ungrateful daughters and a French invasion may have been a little too raw.

By far my most common thought though was of Yuste, the location of the retirement of Charles V. I've long been fascinated by Charles V as a pivot point in European history. His own, memorably described, 'genealogical joyride,' brought into single ownership an unprecedented profusion of crowns and though I think his power in practice operated below the level of all those coronets, it was still vast. The consequences are still with us. Under him, the Reformation began and took hold, vast sections of the New World were colonised, the Union of Austria and Hungary was created, and in some ways, much of the next hundred years and beyond was shaped simply by his will. The partition of his domains between his brother and son in itself changed the dynamic of Europe. That he detached the Low Countries from the German Habsburg inheritance and linked it to Spain could be described as leading to the creation of up to six modern states. Portugal, Austria, Belgium, the Netherlands, Luxembourg, and Lichtenstein include at least two of my favourite places in the whole world, but they are all, to some extent, dynastic accidents.

That decisive partition is even more extraordinary because it was made while Charles remained alive. in the mid 1550s, he gradually abdicated all his possessions and retreated to a monastery, where he remained for over two years before dying. It would be wrong to argue that Charles was at the peak of his powers - he was in the middle of war with the French for a start - but this was in no way a forced abdication due to weakness (though I think there is some evidence of excruciating pain from gout playing a factor). For me though, extraordinary though the decision is, the truly astonishing thing is the period following: for over two years the most powerful European polity had two kings, and two very different kings at that. In that period, Philip II was fighting the French and indeed the Pope, while Charles apparently continued to correspond abroad. Yet, there are no suggestions of clashes, or that disaffected factions ran to Yuste. This is not the norm.

Though fascinating, to my knowledge there is nothing written in English at least about this almost unique period of two kings and about the self-imposed internal exile of the most powerful man in Christendom. I suspect it is little known (I wonder if early Jacobean audiences would have known of it), and little thought of. This is a great shame.