FROM an early age, Alastair Cook has been marked for the top. All that remains to be seen is whether his apparently inevitable Test debut comes in Pakistan. If it does, he will join a select group of Englishmen, including Brian Close and Ben Hollioake, to be capped before their 21st birthday. Cook’s is on Christmas Day.

A child prodigy, Cook scored a staggering 19 hundreds for Bedford School and first played for Essex’s second XI in the same year he represented England in the Under-15 World Cup. In that competition, he recalls ruefully how he ran himself out first ball against India, a rare setback. Three years later, he scored fifties in each of his first three county championship matches for Essex. The next winter, he captained England to the semi-finals of the Under-19 World Cup, in which he registered consecutive scores of 108 not out, 108 not out and 87.

If Cook’s first full season, 2004, was solid but unspectacular, bringing him 718 first-class runs at an average of 32, he emphatically evaded the pitfalls of second-season syndrome last summer. His tally of 1,466 runs at 52 included five hundreds, as well as an eye-catching 214 against Australia. Had that innings been deemed first-class — it was not because the match was a two-day affair — Cook would have been the leading runscorer in the country.

The 6ft 2in left-hander, who last winter was called up as a replacement for Kevin Pietersen on the England A tour of Sri Lanka, flies out today.

“I didn’t expect this in my wildest dreams,” he said yesterday. “I think if Owais Shah or Robert Key had been fit, one of them would have been going out there rather than me. But I am absolutely thrilled. I heard yesterday there was a possibility and then found out this morning it was happening. It is a great opportunity to go out there and learn about what Test cricket is like.”

Ronnie Irani, the Essex captain, expressed his delight at Cook’s call-up. “It’s fantastic for him, his family and the club,” he said. “He deserves it on merit. The more experience he gets, the better he’ll become. It’s positive for English cricket to pick someone of that age, but it’s all down to his talent and his ability.”

Irani’s sentiments were echoed by Andy Flower, the former Zimbabwe captain who is a team-mate at Essex. “Alastair’s got a wonderful temperament and is the best player off his hips that I’ve ever seen,” he said. “Where most of us try to flick the ball down to long or fine leg for a single, he hits it just behind square for four. He also pulls and hooks fast bowlers in front of square.”