Alastair Cook notches up a ton as England draw

Fourth Test, Day 5: England (600/6 dec & 279-2) drew with West Indies (749/9 dec) Alastair Cook finally broke his hundred hoodoo when he moved on from a half-century to post a 100+ total for the first time in more than a year as England's penultimate Test of the West Indies series meandered into a draw. "After two days of this Test match, the bookmakers had marked the draw up at 10-1 on. They were not going to go out of business on that one. Once they had survived the whirlwind that is Fidel Edwards, there was little doubt that England would be able to bat out the match without real alarm and they duly did so, the match ending at 3.50 with England 279 for two, a lead of 130," writes Mike Selvey in the Guardian. "Alastair Cook's eighth Test century saw them through, although now they must resign themselves to moving on to ­Trinidad tomorrow in the knowledge that they need a win in the final Test that starts on Friday in order to square a series upon which they had embarked with hubristic hopes beyond their stature. The post-match smile of the West Indies captain, Chris Gayle, told its story."