Cook makes the critics eat their words – and also gives our coaches food for thought

Yesterday Alastair Cook and Jonathan Trott compiled the ninth highest partnership in test history. It was an incredible effort which secured the draw in style. Now the word ‘style’ isn’t one we’d usually associate with Trott and Cook. In fact, if Trott’s batting is a thing of beauty, then so is Ricky Ponting’s boat race. However, Cook’s batting in this match looked good – really good.

In the last couple of years, England’s vice-captain has batted terribly. He’s looked fidgety at the crease, his feet haven’t moved, and he’s become obsessed with his back-lift – not surprising when you consider that Graham Gooch is his batting coach. The result? He’s looked like a cross between Shiv Chanderpaul and Devon Malcolm at the crease.

Every summer we hear a debate about Cook’s technique. It’s become as much a part of the English summer as David Lloyd ogling attractive girls. When he’s been in a slump, we’ve advocated resting Cook so he could go away and work on his game – much like Andrew Strauss did a couple of years ago. However, the England selectors resisted through sheer hope and intransigence.

At the end of the English summer, our coaches had approximately six week to turn Shiv Malcolm into a capable test opener again. It was a tough assignment. Mission impossible, we thought. However, amazingly it seems to have worked. So perhaps we should be giving Cook’s coaches a well earned pat on the back? Well, perhaps not actually.

The new Cook looks remarkably like the old Cook – which was ironically the young Cook. When Cook scored his majestic 104 on debut at Nagpur in 2006 England fans hailed the arrival of a talented but quirky batsman with a great temperament. We should have let him be. Instead, the coaches did what England coaches usually do. They threw the coaching manual at the young prodigy and tried to change him – much like they did with Jimmy Anderson.

Cook’s quest to make his technique more orthodox almost ruined him. Before this Ashes series he made a conscious decision to revert back to his old technique. Eureka! Suddenly he looked comfortable with his game again. If he had ignored the coaches, think how many runs he might have scored in his career – instead of critics, quite rightly in the circumstances, calling for his head.

The basic lesson, of course, is this: if a player aint broke don’t fix him. It’s a cliché because it’s true. What would have happened to Shiv Chanderpaul if he’d been born English? I doubt he’d have scored nine thousand test runs at an average of fifty. Somebody would’ve told him his bottom handed technique wouldn’t do – probably just after he’d scored a match-winning hundred.

The next time England unearth an unorthodox young talent we should leave his game alone. The coaches should remember that our standout players with bat and ball in Brisbane were Cook and Anderson. When the latter burst onto the scene in Australia in 2002 he had the world at his feet. There was just one problem. He didn’t look at the stumps when he delivered the ball. After almost a decade of tinkering, Jimmy has also reverted back to the technique he used as a teenager. As a result, he’s finally fulfilling his potential.

When Hussey and Haddin fortuitously survived Anderson’s spell on the third morning at the Gabba, it seemed that Lady Luck was a bearded Sheila whose favourite pastime was burping Waltzing Matilda. However, England have come out of the match as the lucky ones. We’ve rediscovered two of our brightest stars – two players that could have easily been lost due to over-coaching.

Cricket is a unique game, and there’s always room for unique talents. Having the old Cook and Anderson back is like discovering two new world class players at the same time. It’s delightful.

James Morgan

7 comments

  • Same thing happened to Darren Gough. Couches ‘remodelling’ his action coincided with a major slump in his form.

    I remember when the England management sent the young Ben Hollioake to Dennis Lillie’s bowling school to have his unconventional action sorted out. Apparently Lillie said he was too old to remodel, and it would be a better idea to just fine-tune his natural action. Be a brave man to argue with Lillie on matters of bowling technique.

  • Er…isn’t DKL responsible for the car crash which is Mitchell Johnson? Cricketers as instinctively brilliant as Lillee don’t always make the best coaches.

  • As far as I know, Lillie scouted him and sent him to Rod Marsh’s academy. Johnson had several very successful years as a Test bowler. I’m not sure Lillie can be held responsible for what happened afterwards.

  • Lillee has produced some incredibly good fast bowlers too. Imagine how bad Mitchell Johnson’s action would be without Lillee’s advice?

    Some players, like Malinga and Fidel Edwards defy coaching. What about Murali too? I just get the feeling that if Malcolm Marshall had been English, they would’ve tried to correct his chest-on action and turned him into a side-on trundler.

    The problem for the coaches, of course, would be justifying their fee if they simply said ‘there’s nothing I can (or should) do’ with this or that player. Coaches are just as determined to make an impact and prove they can add something extra to the team/set-up. It’s a very difficult balance. Sometimes players improve with coaching, others get worse. Sometimes they get it right, and sometimes is goes horribly wrong. What I don’t understand is why Cook and Anderson weren’t encouraged to go back to their original techniques sooner.

    Pietersen is another interesting example. The coaches haven’t sorted out his game against left arm spin. If anything they’ve confused him. He’s a natural and pretty unorthodox/unique talent. I hope they tell him to just go out there and twat it at Adelaide. That’s what his game was built around – attacking shots. He can destroy Doherty – if his mind is clear.

  • Without wishing to have Cook’s career dissected by stat analysis, for a guy who is still 25 (just) he has score 14 test hundreds, coverts 50s into 100s more times than not and averages over 45 (235 red helps). Hardly a failure at test level and at least as good a Bell, Strauss and Collingwood and not far off Pieterson (I’ve ignore Trott as he’s only played 14 tests).

    So after 61 tests (yes 61) he still has a good record (for an england player). He is entitled to a few periods of poor performance, but it is too simplistic to blame his technique or the coaches. Rick Pointing’s recent form is poor but he has one of the best techniques around, so it is his age…

    I accept that England coaches do not have a great track record with players but most elite coaches these days do not try reconstruct players’ techniques these days, but they try to work around the edges to help the players with weakness. Players are fully involved those days too. But the opposite, doing nothing, means that players don’t improve. But if you try something, sometime it wont work. When it doesn’t you just can’t revert back (Nick Faldo will never have that loose fluid swing of his youth).

  • Aesthetically, of all the successful England batsmen of the last 30 years, Cook is the one I’d least like to watch. Perhaps Tavare comes close. However his temperament and concentration seem to be near faultless.
    Trott is just THE vanilla batsman. So compact, and – apart from his OCD problem with his guard – not a movemnent wasted. Trott is good to watch, if not flamboyant.

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