Well before Stuart Broad's bail-switching Ashes epic came Alastair Cook's fairytale Oval farewell. A century in his final Test innings, an emotional packed house giving thanks to England's most prolific run-getter, all with the promise of pregnant wife Alice poised to go into labour at any moment.

This time, the end of a 20-year professional career came with a statement quietly released on Friday, two weeks after his last innings in the County Championship.

Rather than three figures and three cheers in south London, it was an edge behind to be out for six in front of a smattering of spectators at Northampton. Seamer Ben Sanderson had the honour of dismissing Cook for the final time. There was no guard of honour, but Cook's Essex team-mates stood on the balcony to salute his service to club and country.

It says much about Cook's love of Essex, the affection he has for his friends in the dressing room and the fun he has had with them that he has played county cricket for five years after calling it quits with England. It was only due to be three, but Essex coaxed an extra two out of him.

England and Essex legend Cook retires from cricket
Listen - From the Ashes podcast: Alastair Cook
BBC Essex archive: Cook reflects on his career
Plenty of others before could not get themselves up for the county treadmill after they had exited the grand stage of the international game. Broad, Andrew Strauss, Nasser Hussain, Alec Stewart and Michael Atherton all went out with three lions on their chest.

Cook went on and on, churning out the runs, a prised scalp on the circuit, still one of the best openers in the country long after he stopped playing for England.

This was the boy born on Christmas Day, who sang for the late Queen and ended up having lunch with her as a knight of the realm. The opener who began his professional career as a wicketkeeper and collected more first-class runs than anyone else still playing the game. The man who posed naked in a women's magazine and played darts on stage at the World Championship.

England is a nation of opening batters. Jack Hobbs, Herbert Sutcliffe, Len Hutton. Geoffrey Boycott opened with Graham Gooch, who opened with Atherton, who partnered Marcus Trescothick, who batted with Strauss, whose partner was Cook. Five of those men have been knighted. None have more runs than Cook. No opener to have played Test cricket has more runs than Cook.

He would be the first to say it wasn't always pretty. Cook's game was essentially built on three shots - a flick to the leg side, a hook or pull, and the cut. If he played a drive through the off side, you knew he was in really good touch. But what Cook had almost more than anyone else was patience, guts and a determination to fight it out.

Cook's 12,472 runs and 33 hundreds in Test cricket are England records. The 263 he relentlessly compiled against Pakistan in 2015 over 836 minutes, four short of 14 hours, is the third-longest ever played. His 159 consecutive Test appearances is a record that will almost certainly never be broken.

Cook's circumnavigation of Australia, yielding 766 runs in a 3-1 victory down under in 2010-11 is one of the greatest modern achievements by any England player. Goodness knows when they will win another series there.

England batter Alastair Cook celebrates his century during the second 2010-11 Ashes Test
Cook hit three centuries during the 2010-11 Ashes
The lowest point of his career also came down under, the disintegration of the best team in the world under his leadership in a 5-0 hiding in 2013-14. The fallout that followed, including the sacking of Kevin Pietersen, made him the target of sustained public criticism.

Even as things got worse in the following home summer against Sri Lanka and India, Cook was rebuilding. Joe Root, Ben Stokes, Moeen Ali, Mark Wood, Jos Buttler and Chris Woakes all got their first taste of Test cricket under Cook. They have gone on to become mainstays of the current England sides, with multiple Ashes and World Cup wins between them.

Only one other man, Archie MacLaren, led England in more than Cook's 15 Tests as an Ashes captain. Cook is one of just three England skippers to win more than one home series against Australia. The second of those wins, in 2015, remains the last time England lifted the urn.

Still, his best moment as captain came in his first series as full-time skipper, the 2-1 win in India in 2012, complete with three epic Cook hundreds. It is India's only home series defeat to anyone in the past 19 years. Goodness knows when England will win there again, either.

His four-year spell as one-day captain included a climb to the top of the world rankings, but it was rightly ended just before the 2015 World Cup to begin Eoin Morgan's creation of a white-ball juggernaut. Cook, well known to be incredibly stubborn, might still argue it was the wrong decision.

Now a pundit on TV and radio, Cook did not always have time for the media. Both as a player and a captain, he saw it as his job to save energy for scoring runs and winning games, rather than entertaining the press.

He has since expressed some regret that not enough of his personality was revealed when he was playing for England, but even then he didn't always make the right first impression with some of his team-mates.

Not long after the young Cook hit the headlines for cracking a double hundred against the touring Australians in 2005, he came up against James Anderson's Lancashire in the County Championship.

"I can't repeat what I said to him the first time I met him," says Anderson. "We thought he was really arrogant, thought he owned the place. I got him out and the whole team gave him a send-off.

"A few months later we both got called up from a Lions tour of the Caribbean to play for England in India, which is a flight of about 25 hours. We were sat across from each other.

"Once we broke the ice, we have been best mates ever since. He's a real solid bloke, the sort you can go to the pub with or ask for advice."

Alastair Cook raises his bat after hitting a century in his final Test innings - against India at The Oval in 2018
Alastair Cook made 147 in his final Test innings against India at The Oval in 2018
Cook did not make the best impression on his future BBC colleagues, either.

The fourth Test against India in 2018 was played in Southampton, where the hotel at one end of the ground doubles as the media centre. When staying in the hotel, England players can often find themselves close to the press and broadcasters.

At the end of one day, with Cook failing to register a hundred in 16 Test innings, Eleanor Oldroyd and Simon Hughes were discussing his form on BBC Radio 5 Live. The door to the room was ajar, allowing the passing Cook to hear his name mentioned. He burst in, muttered his thoughts on the conversation, then left. At the time, perhaps only he knew the next Test would be his last.

After that Oval exit, Cook's enjoyment of his time with Essex translated into runs. In the past five seasons, only Alex Lees has managed more runs than Cook's 3,889 in the County Championship and Bob Willis Trophy. When Essex won the title in 2019, he was their highest run-scorer with 913, behind just three other players in the top flight.

Still, for all of the runs, there is a sense that Cook bows out as the game moves on from players of his style. As Stokes moulds an England Test team in his own aggressive image, the captain has even suggested he would not pick a player like Cook.

For that reason, Cook really could be one of the last of his kind, if not for the amount of runs he has scored, then certainly for the way he scored them.

But, wasn't it glorious? The open mouth as the bowler ran in, the double backlift. The tuck off the pads, the jamming down on the ball that nipped late. The hook in front of square, the bend of the front knee into those occasional drives.

Every ounce of grit, every drop of determination. The endless patience, the grind of run, after run, after run.