Alastair Cook and Kevin Pietersen do just about everything differently. Source: Getty Images
IT TOOK just two deliveries during Kevin Pietersen's innings on day three to highlight why he and his captain, Alastair Cook, are England's odd couple.
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Pietersen was just 11 when he played an audacious pull shot off Mitchell Starc, dragging a short delivery angling away outside off stump from the left-armer through mid-wicket to the boundary.
The next ball was fuller and wider yet Pietersen went further back and across to slap it wide of mid-on for another boundary.
This was a shot only the very finest batsmen can play, picking the length up early and getting so quickly into position he appeared to be waiting for the ball before despatching it.
It was the most memorable shot of a morning session which was built largely around Cook blunting the Australians.
There is very little that is pretty about the way Cook bats but he is omnipresent so it came as a great surprise when, shortly before lunch, he tickled a ball from Mitchell Starc sliding down the leg side to be brilliantly caught by a diving Brad Haddin.
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Even so, Cook had soaked up almost four hours and 177 balls making 62, his highest score in what has been a personally disappointing but collectively imposing series.
No one playing in this Ashes series has spent more time obstinately defying bowlers during their careers than the tall left-hander.
Cook and Michael Clarke are both playing their 95th Test while Pietersen is in his 97th. They have more than 7500 runs each at similar averages ranging from 48 (Cook and Pietersen) to 52 (Clarke).
Yet Cook has faced 16,234 balls during his career, almost 3000 more than Clarke and over 4000 ahead of Pietersen.
This means the Essex boy has batted 667 more overs than the former South African or more than two full Tests.
Cook is cricket's equivalent of a hoarder. Only five other Englishmen have faced more deliveries during their career - Mike Atherton, Geoff Boycott, Graham Gooch, Alex Stewart and David Gower, and they all played many more Tests.
Too many times in the last Ashes series the Australians became sick of the sight of Cook.
He began during the first Test at the Gabba when he made an unbeaten 235 to force a draw during a Test which appeared to be charging headlong towards an Australian victory.
That 10 and a half hour epic changed the momentum of the series and propelled Cook from a battler in the eyes of the Australians to a world class performer. He kept performing, making 766 runs for the series at an average of 128 with three centuries.
By the time he had finished tormenting Australia, Cook had made more runs than any other countryman in an Ashes series apart from Wally Hammond more than 80 years earlier.
So his departure on day three at Old Trafford was a welcome relief for the Australians as they kept pushing for the victory they desperately need to keep alive any hope of regaining the Ashes.
Only a few days into this Test the memories of the Lord's debacle are fading quickly.
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