Once, the MMC were to play Bedford school, but arrived with only 10 men. Cook was recruited to make up the difference, and scored an unbeaten century, and went on to play for the first XI for the following 5 years. In 2003, he averaged 160.87 for Bedford school, scoring over 1,200 runs in the process. He first reached national limelight by scoring a century for the MCC at Lords, against the the then County Champions Warwickshire. In the 2004 Under-19 World Cup, Cook captained England to the semi-finals, scoring 2 centuries along the way. Cook was snapped up by Essex, and in 2005 averaged over 50, including a high score of 195, and 214 against the Australian touring side in a 2-day warm-up match. Cook expected to spend the winter of 2005/06 in the West Indies, but was instead flown to Pakistan as cover for the injury to Micheal Vaughan and the departure of Marcus Trescothick. Thrown in at the deep end, in his first ever Test, Cook made 60 in the first innings, and then went one better by scoring a centrury in the second. This made Cook only the 16th ever England batsmen to score a debut Test century. Cook finished the tour with an average of 61, racking up 184 runs in 4 innings. Like most great batsmen through the years, Cook normally fields at slip. Throughout his relatively short career so far, Cook has won the NBC Denis Compton Award three times (2003, 2004 & 2005), and was the Young Cricketer of the Year in 2005

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