Younger than the Don, a little older than Tendulkar

When (if?) Sachin Tendulkar eventually retires, Alastair Cook, the choir boy who became a batsman, could be best placed to overtake his world-record tally of Test centuries. The possibility is not as outrageous as it sounds. England play more Tests each year than other countries do. Cook made his debut in 2006 and has 62 caps already. And, at 25 years and 348 days, he has age on his side, so form and fitness permitting, Cook will have plenty of opportunities. He has made outstanding use of his chances in Australia so far this summer, scoring 235 and 148 in the first two Ashes Tests. They were his 14th and 15th hundreds, making him the second youngest batsman - after Sachin Tendulkar, ahead of Don Bradman - to score so many.

Tendulkar isn't the youngest batsman to score a century - he's behind Mohammad Ashraful and Mushtaq Mohammad - but he's the youngest to score five Test hundreds, and ten, and every other multiple of five attained by a human being. Tendulkar's the only teenager to have had five Test centuries. He was 40 days younger than Bradman was when he reached his tenth. He is the only 24-year-old to score 15 tons and the only batsman to have 20 before his 27th birthday. And it's likely to stay that way, until another batsman begins in his teens and combines productivity with longevity like Tendulkar has.

Bradman, of course, needed only seven Tests to score five centuries, but he is not unmatched in that feat - George Headley and Everton Weekes did it too. Bradman and Headley were 21 years old, Weekes 23. All of them are in our table of youngest batsmen to score five Test centuries. Headley finished his Test career on 10 tons, Weekes with 15. Both of them don't appear in the tables of youngest batsmen to score 10 and 15 centuries though, but Bradman does. He made his 10th Test century in his 16th match when he was 23, and his 15th ton in his 28th Test five days before his 26th birthday.