Published: Dec 20, 2014, 01:04 PM (IST)
Edited: Dec 21, 2014, 11:14 AM (IST)
Long, long ago Alastair Cook was a fine batsman and a competent captain. He took England to the Champions Trophy final. All that transpired in another time zone. Zoom in on the present. England have squandered 15 of their last 21 ODI matches. Cook’s captaincy had a lot to do with it. His approach to One-Day Internationals (ODIs) has been medieval. in fact, he had an uncanny knack of inducing powerful sleep. Finally, he has been roused from the stupor with a kick in the seat. Ankur Dhawan delves into the layers of failure that had enveloped Cook.
Although the sack may be considered prudent, it has taken the England and Wales Cricket Board (ECB) donkey’s years to realise that Cook had become a liability to the ODI side. Cook knew his days were numbered. But then you need not have been a soothsayer to have predicted that. England have not only lost 15 of their last 21 ODIs, but Cook had scored a lone fifty in this period. And a solitary sparrow does not make an English summer. While England were being hammered left, right and centre, Cook did not even have a fig leaf of expertise as a batsman to cover himself with.
Cook was clearly rattled and hurt by the intense scrutiny. It was not just the public, commentators and journalists who were stomping on him; the final nail was hammered in the coffin by former cricketers, his contemporaries and colleagues. They were all of the opinion that English cricket can do better without the services of Cook as ODI skipper. In fact , a lot of them did not see him playing ODIs had he not been the captain. This clearly reflects the division in the English camp in his time, or at least points to the fact that most of his teammates thought he wasn’t the right man to take them forward.
Other prominent voices deemed that his ODI commitment was detrimental to his Test form, which was obviously more important. It was reckoned that he should ideally invest all his energy in Test cricket. However, when you play international sport, your competitive edge overpowers you and can obliterate your vision.
Cook went down fighting, but he went down. He gets no marks for trying. He discernibly put on a brave face, but it was bravado. The act of chewing of gum so nonchalantly in the final ODI against Sri Lanka reeked of the turmoil within. The fact that he chose not to walk when a player of the stature and credibility of Mahela Jayawardene had him caught is reflection of that turmoil.
To compound matters, he passes on the baton to Eoin Morgan a whisker away from the World cup; unfortunately, Morgan himself is woefully out of form. Should Morgan’s parched run continue it will leave the ECB utterly embarrassed. To add to that Morgan, will have his own ideas about leading this English side, which will throw ECB off course.
There is also the not-too-small the matter of forming rapport with the coach and support staff during his capacity as the English skipper. These imponderables leave English cricket strapped for options in a straitjacket mess. The ambiguity, hovering over English cricket like the shadow of Mordor, transports fans back to the Dark Age of English cricket — the 1990’s. Alastair Cook has left, and he has left English cricket high and dry.
(Ankur Dhawan is a reporter with CricketCountry. Heavily influenced by dystopian novels, he naturally has about 59 conspiracy theories for every moment in the game of cricket. On finding a direct link between his head and the tip of his fingers, he also writes about it)
