ONE TOUGH COOKIE
HOW THE TALL, LANKY KID I SAW STRUGGLING TO HIT IT OFF THE SQUARE BECAME …
The first time I met the young Alastair Cook was when I was struggling for form — again — as england captain and I had decamped to the indoor school at Chelmsford in a desperate attempt to regain my touch.
It was there that a TV reporter from BBC’s Look east approached me with a fresh-faced cricketer by his side to ask if I might have a word about this young essex batsman everyone was tipping for the top.
I looked at who I now know to be england’s record run scorer, then I looked at the reporter and, with the weight of the world on my shoulders amid england’s latest crisis, I said: ‘Not now mate.’ Cook has reminded me about that pretty much every time I’ve spoken to him since.
Then, soon after, I was making one of my few appearances alongside Cook before I retired — for the essex second team at Colchester, I think — in another bid to finally score some runs. I was walking around the ground talking about my problems with the great Keith Fletcher.
I was asking the guru of essex how I could possibly start hitting runs again when he looked at the match going on in the middle and said: ‘Never mind you, that lad is going to be something special.’
All I could see was a tall, lanky kid struggling to hit it off the square. It was Alastair Cook. I said: ‘Thanks Fletch but I’d rather worry about me.’ Maybe I should have been watching Cook more closely.
Statistics tell you that the same Alastair Cook will retire from international cricket next week as england’s greatest-ever batsman but more important than that is the person he is. he has not changed from those days to now.
When you play for england, especially as captain, you are an ambassador for your country and your sport and the way he has carried himself for 12 years, through adversity as well as so many triumphs, speaks volumes. I interviewed
Sachin Tendulkar recently and he said his dad once told him people only remember you as a cricketer for so long but they will judge you as a human being for your whole life.
So, when everyone stands to Cook the cricketer at The Oval there will be as much appreciation of the way he has conducted himself as the thousands of runs he has scored.
Cook is certainly the toughest cricketer mentally I have ever come across. he has not got the perfect technique, yet for more than a decade he has had to strap on the pads and go out there and get a score.
how he has done it time after time is quite remarkable and behind all that is Cook the workaholic, one of the fittest men in the team and a batsman who has spent hours in the nets with Graham Gooch and others working on his game.
he has played 158 Tests in a row! You would have thought that there would have been form or fitness issues somewhere along the line but his resilience is second to none.
Yes, there have been bad times since he got that hundred on debut in Nagpur and among the purple patches like the 2010-11 Ashes and the series win in India when he was at his peak as batsman and captain.
But perhaps his greatest triumph as captain came after england lost 5-0 under him in Australia and he saw one of the best teams england have ever had being broken up in
front of his eyes. Cook could easily have walked away from the captaincy during all the problems which followed that 2013-14 tour but he had the strength to carry on.
To see the emotion in his face when he lifted that urn again after the 2015 Ashes showed he had battled through to redemption.
It summed up the bloke. he has never been one to take the easy option.
he might deny it but there is a bit of Alastair Cook who has always wanted to say: ‘I’ll show them they’re wrong.’ Unfortunately, after 12 years at the top, there are only so many times you can dig that deep.
I spoke to Alastair during the Trent Bridge Test and he was very relaxed.
There were no excuses about his poor form but he did say how the last couple of years on green pitches against the Dukes ball was the hardest challenge of his career.
When you have done it for so long it takes its toll not only on your cricket but on the side of his life we do not see, his family life.
Cook could have just plodded on and taken the money because there are no obvious replacements for him and there is certainly no appetite within the england set-up for him to call it a day.
After all, england have selected 12 openers to partner Cook since the retirement of Andrew Strauss so it is hard enough finding one
who can do the job these days, let alone two.
eventually you have to say enough’s enough and move on with your life but there will certainly be a very emotional england dressing room at The Oval in the final Test because he is so popular.
The fact is, he has been a very popular member of every team he has played in.
The one thing any player has control over is the timing of their retirement and I think Cook has got it spot on — england have just beaten the No 1 side in the world.
It would have been sad to see our greatest-ever batsman just hanging on in there in the hope that his form would improve and Alastair does not deserve to go out like that. It is not his style.
he deserves to play at The Oval, too. his team-mates will want to have him with them one last time as will, I’m sure, the supporters who have paid their money to watch the final Test.
For someone who only had two or three shots against spin, he has a
magnificent record in India and on turning pitches around the world.
Cook will want to go out on a high now. he will not want a guard of honour and a couple of low scores. I don’t think he will switch off until that final ball is bowled. Alastair will want people to say: ‘You could have carried on a bit longer?’ rather than ‘It’s time to go.’
I’m a little surprised he will play on for essex because it is not easy to step down, if you like, from the Premier League to the Championship. You only have to look at scores to know you cannot coast at the top of the order in county cricket.
But Cook is an essex man through and through and loves playing for them so he will give it a go and will spend some time at the family farm that has long kept him level and enabled him to switch off.
There are not many old-fashioned ‘over my dead body’ type of opening batsmen left and we will perhaps only know quite how good Alastair Cook was when he is gone.
We have one last chance to savour what he has done.
He will want to go out on a high. He won’t switch off until that final ball is bowled