Top 5 left-handed English Test openers of all time

#1 Alastair Cook

Ever since he flew down to India to replace Marcus Trescothick at the age of 22 and scored a century on debut, Alastair Cook was earmarked for greatness. It is quite clear that he is one of the greatest opening batsmen to have ever played the game.

That naturally makes him the greatest left-handed batsman that England has ever had. He has played 152 Test matches so far and has opened in 145 of those. Cook's game is built on a superb technique, patience, ability to play all sorts of bowling and the gift of scoring big hundreds once he is set.

Cook has scored 11378 runs as an opener so far and has averaged a healthy 45.87 in his career so far. On the other hand, he has also scored 30 centuries and as many as 53 half-centuries.