Shame no one made 200: day two at the Oval

“He was very low that night and he went to his [hotel] room wondering, ‘Do I really need this?’ But he woke up the next morning and said ‘I am in’,” Paul Downton, the managing director of the England team, revealed in an interview with BBC’s Test Match Special. “That was all I wanted to hear, that he was committed to this job.”

“Downton described that Sri Lanka Test as the turning point for Cook”.

In what sense was it the turning point? Nothing improved for Cook after that match. In fact, it got worse – with a difficult game at Trent Bridge, a hugely embarrassing defeat at Lord’s, and four more low scores. If there was a ‘turning point’ it was surely the drop by Jadeja at Southampton.

Downton has tried to portray Cook’s Premier Inn existential crisis as some kind of miraculous epiphany. As the skipper forlornly surveyed his Corby trouser press and tea and coffee making facilities, he suddenly saw the light, and at once his inner steel triumphed over self-doubt to pave the way for England’s glorious rebirth. For England’s boss, this was Cook’s Nickajack Cave moment. For others, it might seem like a stubborn man determined to hang on to his job despite knowing he’s not up to it.

The news that Cook was committed to the job was “all [Downton] wanted to hear”. He wasn’t interested in anything else – Cook’s form, his captaincy, the team’s performances? No, all Downton cared about was that if Cook quit, his entire strategy would unravel – including the sacking of Pietersen – making his own job no longer tenable.

Given that Cook by his own admission came close to resignation in Australia, and again at Leeds, what was it which really changed his mind? Did Downton – perhaps repeatedly – talk him out of it?

Meanwhile, a wonderful day is in store tomorrow (Sunday). As I’ve mentioned previously, Sky Sports are currently celebrating their two hundredth live England test match. To mark this momentous occasion, Giles Clarke will conduct a tea-time presentation to the heroes of the Sky commentary team, some of whom stoically broadcast for up to two hours a day from the rigorous confines of the press box in return for nothing more than a meagre salary and the thanks of a grateful nation.

Earlier this week, according to the Sky press release, “the England men’s and women’s teams wore caps embroidered with ‘200’ in team photos”.

Personally, I find it most heartwarming to see the apparatus of an England test match utilised in this way to help promote the Sky Sports brand. My only hope is that one player on either side is able to score a double century, which would be a fitting final act of tribute.

In a statement, Clarke said he wanted to “congratulate and thank Sky for their commitment to Test cricket”, although a cynic might say that the broadcaster is committed to cricket in the same way as Tescos are committed to loaves of bread: as a commodity and an item of stock.

We should all be grateful to Sky, though, because we only have them to thank for everything the England team’s achieved in recent years. As Clarke says, “the funding that Sky’s investment in cricket has produced has also led to a period of unrivalled success on the field for…the England senior side”. And there were you thinking the players might have had something to do with it.

I wonder if amid all the pomp and circumstance of tomorrow’s jamboree whether the ECB chairman will make any mention of the viewers, who of course actually pay for the whole thing. Or maybe, for the millions of cricket lovers who can’t afford to.