Lots of people are making all sorts of assumptions about this test. First of all, they’re certain England will lose – and if England lose, the story goes, Alastair Cook will lose his job.
The pundits also seem sure that if he’s relieved of the captaincy, good old Alastair will suddenly recapture his best batting form – he is, after all, an ‘all time great’.
The first of these assumptions is probably right. Although there’s still a glimmer of hope, as Root and Moeen have proved their ability to bat for long periods. Our tail is also prone to wagging – although it’s often harder for the lower order to survive against spinners bowling into the rough.
The next assumption – the one where Cook loses his job – is probably wishful thinking rather than anything else.
We must not forget that this is a ‘new era’. Everything that went before – the Ashes debacle, the embarrassing ODI defeats (everything, in fact, other than the games Cook won) – has effectively been wiped from the record.
In the warped world inhabited by Clarke and Downton, Cook has only been in charge for four matches (except the tour of India, when we won of course) so making a change would be far too premature. Besides, he could still lead the team to ultimate victory! The battle might have been lost, but the series is still alive.
I can hear the logic now: “we always knew there would be a few bumps in the road; this is a young team blah blah blah”. Translation: we’ve invested too much in Cook to sack him … and wouldn’t Piers Morgan just love it if we did.
If England lose, I expect Alastair Cook to be backed to the hilt. I personally assume he’ll stay in charge until the after the World Cup in Australia (or at least the end of this India series). Indeed, if the ECB do actually sack him now, they’ll be even more spineless than I thought.
Now we come to the final prediction – the one whereby Cook suddenly becomes Jack Hobbs because he’s free from the burdens of captaincy.
I’m still not buying this. The captaincy probably isn’t helping, but Cook will still be the same old batsman, with the same old technical flaws, whether he’s calling the shots or not. He’s gone 28 games without scoring a century before – in 2010 in fact, when he wasn’t anywhere near the bleedin’ captaincy.
In the words of Grumpy Bob and Nasser Hussain, opposition teams have finally worked Cook out. It’s remarkable it’s taken this long. A batsman who cannot drive cannot score runs in test cricket. End of. Cook is too easy to bottle up, frustrate, and eventually dismiss. He took almost one hundred balls to make his scratchy 20 odd yesterday.
There must be a chance that Cook’s career as a test batsman is at an end. He’s very unlikely to score runs again unless he can get forward properly by bending his front knee – the first thing schoolboys learn – and drive through the line of the ball.
As Cook’s been unable to do this for ten years, will he ever be able to do it? Alastair has remarkable resilience, so it’s not impossible for him to reinvent himself, but there must also be a significant chance that he’s done.
Many people can’t imagine life without a young lefthander at the top of England’s order. Never fear. As Yoda once said “there is another”. His name is Alex Lees.
Fortunately, Lees is a better prospect than Alastair ever was – that’s if you value pure natural talent and a sound technique above a private school education. I admit this is a subjective judgement (I was underwhelmed when I first saw Cook after hearing all the hype), but I’m extremely excited about Lees.
Cook has been a very good player for England – one hopes he’ll find redemption and eventually score even more runs for his country – but if the worst happens and Alastair really is as cooked as some of us fear, all is not lost.
This summer has come a bit early for Lees, but he’ll eventually fill Cook’s shoes, or even open the batting alongside him, quite nicely.
Who will replace Cook as captain is trickier question. It surely can’t be Ian Bell, who seemingly cannot handle his responsibilities as a senior batsman. How’s he supposed to deal with the responsibilities of captaincy?
James Morgan
Let’s play “Mythbusters”..
A lot is said about Alastair Cook’s “career saving” hundred at The Oval in 2010. He did not go 28 innings without a century leading up to that. It was, in fact 9 test innings, unless you don’t want to count the two centuries against Bangladesh. If you want to erase them from your record books, then the last century before that was three tests before at Durban.
On my blog, well before this crisis of confidence, the tag relating to our captain is “No Ton Cook”. I started it in 2009, and Cook had not scored a hundred the preceding calendar year. From his 118 in the Galle embarrassment in December 2007, we would have to wait until his 139 not out on a Bridgetown road to play out a draw for a century (the same test Sarwan made 291). What, as Newman pointed out on Cricket Writers, is that the 50s he was making then in that 28 or so innings drought, included a 94, and ten other half centuries.
While history is a guide to future performance, it is by no means the guarantee that others are talking about in the media. I’ve seen countless tedious references to going back to County Cricket, and yet Cook did that at the start of the season and made masses of runs. I think it is also wrong to dismiss his career thus far as being in some way fortunate that he has made the runs he has. I think there’s just too much going on in his head, a sort of technical block, which has taken the natural element, such as it is in Cook’s game, away so that everything is process. Cricket batting as a golf swing.
I heard media people saying “everyone wants Cook to do well”. There are some of us that find that hard to accept. I’ve lost a lot of good feeling towards Cook because people want it both ways. He’s everyone’s nice man (who shoots baby deer for sport) who can’t be blamed for this, but in another turn he’s a strong leader who got rid of Gooch (his mentor, until he isn’t) and the troublesome Pietersen. That’s why the good feeling has gone.
This test? Going to be closer than we think.
Thanks for your thoughts Dimitri.
I’m somewhat dismissive of Cook’s test runs because most of them, in my opinion (and I do realise I’m biased in that I much prefer batsmen with orthodox techniques who are easy on the eye), were made against weak attacks. In my article titled ‘The Cult of Alastair Cook’ a few weeks ago, I demonstrated how his career record against the weaker sides is very impressive, but he’s constantly struggled against real quality seam bowling. Consequently, I do not think he would have made a run against the likes of McGrath, Wasim, Waqar, Donald, Ambrose, Walsh etc – top class bowlers who can exploit glaring technical weaknesses. Michael Holding himself has said he would’ve been licking his lips had he come across a batsman like Cook.
So basically yes, I do think he’s extremely fortunate to have scored as many test runs as he has. Had he been born 10 years earlier, I doubt he would have played more than 25 test matches. Cook is something of an aberration in the history of test cricket – an opener who cannot drive, with massive technical problems, who defies orthodoxy to such a degree, playing for so long with so much (relative) success. This aberration has only been possible due to the lack of quality bowling attacks around over the last few years, but perhaps more importantly the number of low, slow, benign test surfaces these days.
Better bowlers and wickets that suit seamers probe and test batsmen’s techniques, whereas mediocre bowling on featherbeds masks deficiencies. Cook’s deficiencies have been masked extremely well over the last ten years. It has made a good (but hardly great) batsman appear much better than he actually is. If Cook was indeed a great player (and I’m not saying you personally think he is!) he wouldn’t have been found out with a ploy as simple as ‘pitching the ball up’.
I agree with James I think Cook is massively overrated. To me his batting, just like The England team has been akin to the Death Star out off Star Wars. It seems indestructible, travelling the galaxy ruthlessly destroying planets, but hidden beneath is a fatal flaw. In Cooks case it is the weakness to the pitched up ball on off stump. I think it was Brendan McCullen who first came up with this plan to deny him any short bowling with New Zealand. It has since been copied by the Australians in 2 series, and now Sri Lanker and India.
England’s fatal flaw was Swann. Destroy him and the whole England strategy fell apart.(they had only 1 strategy for 5 years under Strauss and Cook) The Australians targeted him in the winter, and because of his various operations could no longer spin the ball. With him knocked out of the attack the work load would grind England’s seamers into the dust.
The fact that England’s army of back room staff could not understand this is my greatest worry for the future. They may be able to create 87 page diet sheets, but they don’t see the bigger picture. They walked aimlessly into an ambush in Brisbane. Totally unaware of what was coming. They had so convinced themselves how brilliant they were and unbeatable they had become.
Yes Cook needs to go as captain (he was never captain material) I don’t care what school he went to, or how posh is family is. He is tactically illiterate. He will cling on for dear life because the captaincy is the only thing keeping him in the team. It’s not his batting. I have nothing against Cook personally ,and it is unfortunate for him that he has become the lightening rod of those of us who detest the way English cricket is being run by the ECB. But they chose to make him the poster boy of the ECB. They told us endlessly that he was a great captain, and a great batsman. As it unravelled they were forced to defend him with increasing hysteria.
Cook the batsmen should be dropped but (and I’m stating the obvious here) Cook the captain makes this much more complex. Part of being captain is making the tough calls on and off the field, many of which have made him unpopular with many, this is something which is certainly counting in Ian Bell’s favour who’s spineless batting is leaving England’s order bereft of backbone and prone to collapse, his form last summer is looking more like an anomaly.
Bell has the benefit of never upsetting anyone, never dropping anyone and never making an incorrect tactical decision, but has failed in his one job of scoring heavy runs at no.4.
Although watching Cook scratch around for 20 runs is excruciating it is a relatively recent phenomenon, watching Bell cruise to 30 then give it away has happened (last summer apart) for years.
I the same way Monty is considered a one dimensional player (if he doesn’t bowl well he offers little else) I’m starting to see Bell in the same light.
Some good points there. I have to say that Bell’s regression is a real disappointment. He all thought he’d finally cracked it after playing so well in last summer’s Ashes. I’d disagree about Cook scratching around being a new experience though. He’s only averaged over 26 once in five Ashes series. In fact, whenever quality seam bowlers are in town – whether they’re called Steyn, Mohammad Amir, McGrath, or Ryan Harris – Cook invariably goes missing. Bizarrely, he’s an excellent player of spin though!
[…] usual, I recommend the Full Toss’s post on the day’s play and on Alastair Cook, where your’s truly has added a turgid comment. I […]
He’s scored 4 centuries a year consistently (up until 2013) and contributed to match and series wins by scoring tough runs at the top of the order rather than, in Bells case, once the team are on top.
The point about scoring against top class bowlers is certainly true but I think it applies to most of England’s batsmen, in fact I can’t think of many Batsmen to get on top of McGrath or more recently Steyn.
Bell scored very tough runs in last summers ashes when Cook was, yet again, missing in action. However, we ‘re probably getting off the point. Neither should be captain IMHO. Cheers for your thoughts.
Well, KP got on top of both McGrath and Steyn, didn’t he? Watch Steyn’s face during KP’s Headingley ton. Tells you all you need to know about how KP’s viewed by the opposition. He’s genuinely impressed / baffled.
Sadly Cook has no-where to go as his vice captain is out form and will probably get the chop for the 3rd test. So how does England sort this mess out when the two leaders are woefully struggling and the two leading bowlers are creaking and not probably going last three more tests? Bell’s bad form is not helping anybody either, but the young blokes are looking ok, so perhaps throw more in there and see how they go.
The selectors are going to have to make some pretty bold moves here, soak up the media flak and re-arrange this team.
Captain? Still nobody has told me their thoughts on possibilities, but I keep coming back to Read (if they don’t bring in Buttler). What about Compton? Dare I say…..KP???
Just a note, most opening batsmen look like great players of spin, this is usually because they are normally on about 30-40 by the time they have to face one.
We’ve had plenty of batsman able to dominate world class fast bowlers. Strauss, KP, Vaughan,Tresco on occasions. going back further you have Stewart, Atherton before his back went, and Thorpe. Cook is not in that class. He has one ability: the concentration to dominate weak bowling attacks on flat pitches.
(Sorry, a new contributor to this blog which is very good btw).
Prior has just, effectively, resigned his place in the team. He’s done the right thing. Cook hadn’t the reputation left himself to do it, and its clear the selectors are frightened of the dilemma which awaits (a good county keeper who might not be up to Test-standard batting? A great batting prospect who’ll drop catches?)
I think Cook should go too, temporarily, but mostly because he’s totally shot right now. His captaincy’s no great shakes but I don’t see an obvious successor and England fans should be digging in for a long haul until the new generation of players are truly battle-hardened and entering their late 20s/early 30s prime.
That said, I don’t agree completely with all the anti-Cook diagnosis on this forum. He has been more than a flat-track bully. His run-getting was a vital part of England’s rise to no.1. And his current average-depressing, possibly career-ending slump is what happens to nearly all England batsmen of the modern era, which is why none of them (unlike in other countries) have averaged over 50 through their careers since the retirement of Ken Barrington almost half a century ago. Finally, this claim about a fundamental technical flaw seems to be based on the idea that a left-handed opening batsman can survive nearly a decade in international cricket without being tested out repeatedly by the full ball outside off stump, often slanting across him – that is, the obvious and stock ball all left-handers face at top level, which explains why they tend to play squarer of the wicket than right-handers, and which they either get very good at coping with or don’t survive at all. (Think, e.g., the difference between Morgan and Strauss, in Tests). I remember Benaud commenting on this in the 1980s FFS. I don’t buy it. If you super-imposed the 2010-11 Cook with the 2014 version, playing the full ball outside off stump, you would see one knowing when to leave and playing the line confidently, the other uncertain of line and not knowing when to leave. The same problem, incidentally, eventually did for Gower: wafting the full ball to the cordon.
Edward,
Thank goodness for some more balanced comment on Cook’s career batting record. You don’t average 45 in test cricket by being “lucky” and having “no technique”. Of course Cook has his foibles and his weaknesses like every other batsman, but you can only score against the bowlers in front of you on the wickets prepared. Graeme Smith averaged fifty without being able to drive and had a weakness against the inswinging ball all through his career. He didn’t have a great record against Australia. He wasn’t “good to watch” and he had more than one form slump. So what? His runs are in the book – and so are Cook’s.
As for no English batsman averaging 50, it’s a fair point. But I’d like to see some comparisons of average scores per wicket in each country over say, the last 10 years. My guess is that those scores would be fractionally lower in England (and NZ) than Australia, SAF and (especially) the sub-continent. If they’re not, I’ll stand corrected and withdraw the point, but if they are, then a 45 playing half your tests in England shapes up as well as 50 playing half your tests somewhere else.
All of this is not to say that Cook deserves to be captain (he does not, although I still haven’t heard any truly viable alternatives) or even in the team right now. There’s a strong case to drop him, although personally I’d try him at 3 until the end of this series. I’d open with Root (which is surely where he’s going to end up) and put Ballance at 5. I like the solidity that Ballance brings to the middle order at 5, although I agree it’s counter-intuitive to move him from 3 when he’s scoring runs. It may just be worth it, if batting first drop gives Cook the time to clear his head from captaincy to batting, and recover his form.
Who knows? It may be the end of Cook as a test batsman. I don’t think it is – but it certainly may be. But if it is, I won’t be retconning the runs he has made and the victories he’s helped bring about. He’s been a damn fine player for England over the years.
England need some changes
Robson
Stoke
Moeen ali
Plunket
should be dropped
need i quickie like rankin
spinner like treadwell
2 batters, whats wrong with morgan and butler?
and play aggressive which is england main feature .
try and next test u will win
make fast – fast fast picthes not dead… u are not playing in india
I can’t believe what I’m reading here. Robson and Moeen doing brilliantly as far as I’m concerned. Plunkett is the pick of the pacemen and Stokes just coming back from injury. He’ll probably be better at Southampton.
[…] In a year of sickening lows, this was virtually rock bottom. A fourth-day abomination and fifth-day surrender consigns England to catastrophic second-test defeat by India at […]