England batsman Alastair Cook said he felt "very humble" after receiving his Member of the Order of the British Empire (MBE) medal from Britain's Queen Elizabeth II at Buckingham Palace here on Tuesday. The left-handed opener's prolific form in Australia during the 2010/11 Ashes series helped England to a 3-1 series win - their first Test campaign triumph 'down under' in 24 years.
Cook, 26, scored a mammoth 766 runs in the series to play a major part in that series win, which helped propel England to the top of the Test rankings. "It's been a fantastic couple of years for the England cricket team and for me to be here and get the MBE is an honour - I feel very humble to be given it. "We've achieved some fantastic things - the aim now is to try and continue that success," said the Essex star.
Cook paid tribute to the input of coach Andy Flower and England captain Andrew Strauss, saying: "We've had fantastic leadership under Andy Flower and Andy Strauss, and we've been outstanding. The aim now is to maintain that. "Everyone is desperately determined to continue to remain at the top and a lot of hard work is needed and we're going to have to scrap very hard in a lot of games.
"We've got a lot of confidence from what we've achieved but hopefully it's not the end of it." Cook began his Test career with a second-innings century in Nagpur, India, in March 2006, and has now made 19 Test tons in all. In the second innings of the first Ashes Test in November 2010, Cook made 235 not out and the runs kept coming with 148 in the second Test, 82 in the fourth and 189 in the fifth and final Ashes encounter in Sydney. Speaking about his brief chat with the queen during the award presentation, Cook said: "She knew about the success over the last two years and knew where we were in the rankings, so it's nice to know she follows cricket."
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