The former captain showed he has plenty of batting life with a defiant stand against a disciplined South Africa attack on the opening dayShortly after lunch at The Oval, Alastair Cook leaned back like a man settling into his favourite well-worn upright chair and nudged Keshav Maharaj away through square leg for a single, making his ground with that familiar knock-kneed jog. The run brought up England’s hundred in the 29th over of a tough, tight, airless day in south London. As the crowd relaxed into a swell of applause Cook came down the pitch, summoned Joe Root and offered a slightly gawky, oddly touching fist-bump.From a distance it looked more like a fraternal pat on his captain’s shoulder on...
For the former captain, this has been a rare golden summer and he may just be ripe for a Gooch-like late career surge as the South Africa Test series loomsComfort often arrives in unexpected places. The last two years of Alastair Cook’s time as England captain were fretful at times, marked by scratchiness, defeats and some elbow-gnawing press conferences, an understandable sense of basic human metal fatigue at the prospect of being forced to communicate yet again in a series of terse, angsty soundbites in front of a board covered with adverts.Cook is a good man and a wonderful cricketer but his manner has perhaps chimed with something a little alienating, a sense that here is a child entirely of...
The ECB did its best to make it seem there was doubt over who would replace Alastair Cook in a role that has markedly declined in visibility and power – not to mention good-chappery and chaosIt is not often that the England and Wales Cricket Board sets an example to the entire free world, but it might be said to have happened this week.Just when the entire planet is transfixed by the chaotic transition in Washington, up pops the ECB to announce that one pleasant, well-brought-up young man from a not-quite-front-rank public school will become England captain, replacing another slightly less young man fitting the same description.Forget the well-rehearsed, well-mannered acceptance speeches. English cricket is a soap opera or it...
Past bodes well for county’s 10th national leader, who can look back on a lineage of lords, knights and no little silverwareSo the three-day event that has been the deliverance of the new England captain finally came to a conclusion at sunny Headingley. Up stepped Joe Root in his collar, tie and blazer, two days after Andrew Strauss had confirmed the bleeding obvious, plenty of time for him to compose a manifesto.To the relief of his Yorkshire forebears his first aspiration had a familiar ring. “I’d like to be a captain that wins,” he said. Raymond Illingworth will be pleased by that. When he was in charge of the 1970–71 tour Illingworth was aghast and then furious after his manager...
The record of former England captains as run-scorers is not that encouraging – only David Gower seems to have prospered – but such is Alastair Cook’s single-mindedness he can buck that trend“He’s no Mike Brearley” was a common lament about Alastair Cook. I’m sure I have heard that sentiment spring from the lips of Cook himself – without referring to himself in the third person – and it was not an observation based on the fact Cook has scored an enormous number of runs for England. He recognised that he had limitations as a captain.But there is one point of contact with the old guru. Cook’s departure from the England captaincy has been more graceful and considered than anyone’s since...