Day one at the Kensington Oval

It’s an excellent batting pitch. The West Indies’ bowlers are decent but unsensational. England won the toss. And yet – here’s the bottom line – England are 240-7. West Indies had by far the better of the day, and England are probably heading for a seriously inadequate first-innings score.

None of this matters, of course, to those commentators sent into paroxysms of ecstasy by Alastair Cook’s century. The actual test match is a mere sub-plot compared to what really matters – the redemption of their hero. The critics have been ‘answered’, the doubts ‘dispelled, and the clouds ‘lifted’. The England team, after all, is a only a vehicle for the veneration and aggrandisement of Cook.

All hail the golden prince! Lo, the Dauphin rides again.

Yesterday I wrote that Cook had to score a century yesterday. He duly did. In a sense, well done to him, and we shouldn’t be too churlish. You can’t ask much more of a batsman, on any given day, than to make a hundred – especially as wickets were falling around him.

But it’s wildly misleading to conclude that Cook’s achievement signifies the end of all arguments over his form and legitimacy. In his column last night, Jonathan Agnew said that “if people still want to be negative about Cook, I’m afraid they’ve got a problem”. All anyone ultimately wants is what’s best for English cricket. If we disagree about precisely what that entails, does that mean we have a “problem”? Of course, unlike Jonathan, I don’t go out for dinner with Cook, so perhaps I’m biased.

Cook’s century was not a resolution of the debate. It was a minimum requirement – and a reminder of what I call ‘The Collingwood Principle’. This dictates that any first class batsman, if they play in every single test match, will eventually score the occasional century. Sooner or later will come a day when they avoid dismissal. How many centuries might, for example, Nick Compton have scored had he been allowed an unquestioned two-year run in the side? Trott will be dropped for failure in three successive test matches. Cook can fail for entire, consecutive, five-match series, but remain inviolate.

The key question is this: how long will it be until Cook scores his next test century? 2017? Do even his most slavish devotees really think he can score two centuries against Australia this summer? Runs in the West Indies don’t always translate into Ashes success. In the equivalent 2009 series Ravi Bopara made three centuries in the Caribbean, but failed utterly at home against Australia’s (fairly modest) attack.

There was some bilge coming out of the commentary boxes yesterday. Some commentators were brilliant test cricketers. Some are excellent natural broadcasters. A few are both. And then there’s Ed Smith. What exactly is the point of him? Anyway, he described Cook’s century as “wonderful”, which seemed stretching the point a little. Cook should have been out on 20, caught perfectly cleanly at short leg. Later he came within a whisker of playing on. All day he batted only for himself, even running out Moeen Ali in his selfish desperation to reach his century. And as soon as he did, he was out to a poor shot, instead of using the hundred as a platform for further progress.

When Kevin Pietersen played for himself, and gave his wicket away when well-set, he was excoriated. Alastair Cook does exactly the same thing, and everyone fawns over him in genuflecting admiration.

Your own thoughts are very welcome, not just on yesterday’s play, but today’s, as it unfolds.