Proud Cook admits to wrench of leaving family

CHITTAGONG, Bangladesh: Alastair Cook has admitted to questioning how much longer he can extend his record-breaking England career, torn between the pride of playing for his country and the wrench of being parted from his young family.

Cook will become England’s most capped Test player on Thursday when he leads his side out against Bangladesh in Chittagong at the start of a two-match series — his 134th appearance in whites for his country.

Given that he is still only 31, remains at the top of his game and is remarkably injury-free, talk is growing that Indian legend Sachin Tendulkar’s all-time record of 200 Test appearances could be vulnerable.

Cook is already the only Englishman to score more than 10,000 Test runs and widely tipped to also overtake Tendulkar’s record of 15,921 runs.

But after flying back to rejoin the squad in Bangladesh only days after his wife Alice gave birth to their second daughter, Cook acknowledged that the prospect of many more years of touring was daunting.

“We play Tests so quickly nowadays so I could do (break Tendulkar’s appearances record)... The danger is looking at it,” he told journalists late Tuesday in Chittagong.