Hungry Cook set to turn up the heat beyond 150
Express.co.uk/sport/cricket
ALASTAIR COOK has told critics ready to bring the curtain down on his Test career that the fire inside still burns brightly.
The opener is already the most capped player in England’s history and will walk out to his 150th Test match at the WACA.
And while pundits including Mitchell Johnson, Ricky Ponting and Kevin Pietersen have all suggested in recent days they have detected signs his hunger has dimmed, Cook maintained he is as driven as ever.
“The people who are saying that have had no contact time with me, they wouldn’t know the extra nets I’ve been doing behind closed doors,” said Cook, who has 31 Test centuries.
“I was with Gary Palmer, the England Lions coach, for an hour and a half yesterday morning desperately trying to keep working at my game. That’s not a guy who’s given in.
“Do I have a desire to carry on? Absolutely. As I said, I wouldn’t be going to do extra gym sessions and extra batting if I wasn’t.”
Cook admits his form on this tour has dipped below the high standards he has set himself throughout his career. In Brisbane he made nine runs and in Adelaide 37 and 16.
Yet there were signs, particularly in the first innings in the second Test when his feet were moving better and he was middling the ball nicely.
“Clearly I’d like to score more runs. My job at the top of the order – and it has been since 2006 – is to try to get England off to a good start and on this tour I have struggled,” said Cook. “But I thought in Adelaide I played a bit better. Four games ago I got a double hundred [against West Indies in August]. So it’s amazing how the cycle of the world goes.
“It doesn’t get any easier and it doesn’t matter how many games or what you’ve done before, you still go out on nought every time you bat. Whether you’re playing your first game or your 150th, it doesn’t get any easier.
“But that’s why it’s called Test cricket – it’s meant to be hard. I’m not saying I am absolutely flying here, because you only fly when you are really scoring runs. It’s about the result at the end of the day, and the first couple of Test matches I haven’t done that. I’ve got to do that here.”
While Cook is clearly nearer the end of his career than the start, his achievement in reaching 150 Tests is a significant milestone.
Asked what made him most proud, he said it was his unbroken place in the side, which reaches 148 this week, five behind Allan Border’s record of 153. Cook has missed only one match since his debut – the third Test in India in 2006 through illness.
“I wanted to play but Duncan Fletcher saw I was spending more time where I shouldn’t be than in the nets,” he said. “I was in no fit state to play then. But to be backed for as long as I have is a special thing.
“Clearly there’s luck involved and niggles I’ve had have been away from the Test scene. To play 140-odd consecutive games is special.”
MASTERFUL CAREER BY NUMBERS
Cook makes his debut as an emergency cover for Marcus Trescothick against India in Nagpur in 2006 and, apart from missing the third Test of that series with dodgy stomach, has been a fixture since. Has 11,691 Test runs at an average of 45.84, the most by an Englishman and comfortably clear of his mentor Graham Gooch (8,900). Makes his first of 31 Test centuries in that first match, hitting an unbeaten 104 in the second innings after 60 in the first; and his highest score (294) comes against India at Edgbaston in 2011. His last century is a double (243) at Edgbaston against West Indies in August His 766 runs in 2010-11 is fifth on the list of most in an Ashes series. Only Don Bradman (twice), Wally Hammond and Mark Taylor have scored more.