PERFECT TIMING

Bowing out with class and decency, England’s most prolific batsman displays…

He was always likely to jump before he was pushed and alastair Cook has timed his leap to perfection in bowing out now with all the class and decency that have been hallmarks of the most prolific career of any england batsman.

Not since Nasser Hussain scored a century at Lord’s to win a Test against New Zealand 14 years ago and promptly retired on 96 caps to allow a young andrew strauss his chance has any england player called it quits quite so impressively.

It is perfect because Cook has earned the right to go out on his terms after achieving so much for his country over 12 long years which have seen him scale greater heights than countless more naturally gifted english cricketers.

and it is perfect because had the worst run of form in Cook’s career carried on during the final Test against India at The Oval, the selectors would have had one mighty big call ahead of the tours of sri Lanka and west Indies.

so many great players and coaches go on that little bit too long and end up leaving in tears, like Michael Vaughan, or with their achievements overshadowed by a final ashes thumping, like Duncan Fletcher and andy Flower.

Instead, Cook will go out on the high of a series win against the best Test team in the world at a time when everyone in the england set-up would rather he hang around just a little bit longer.

Cook decided, Sportsmail understands, to retire at the end of this series before the fourth Test but he would not have made his decision public had India won at the ageas Bowl to set up a decider this Friday.

Now, with the series sealed, the final Test can become a celebration of Cook’s achievements even if it is slightly out of character for him to want to soak up the adulation rather than slip away quietly to his family farm in Bedfordshire.

There is no question we have been watching the dying of the brightest light in england batting history during a painful year in which Cook has struggled to hold back the tide and the impact of years of opening toil.

Yet Cook, conceivably, could have had another year in him and

one last crack at the aussies next summer, not least because there is such an alarming dearth of alternatives in domestic cricket capable of filling his enormous shoes.

Cook should be applauded for resisting that temptation, just as he was right to step down as captain after defeat in India two years ago when england’s coaches were hoping he would still be at

the helm for last winter’s ashes. Only when england called time on Cook’s reign as one- day captain ahead of the last world Cup did they force his hand and he still feels he should have seen that cycle through before eoin Morgan began the 50-over revolution.

There was always far more steeliness and stubbornness about the former st Paul’s Cathedral choir boy than met the eye, not least when he defiantly remained at the helm in the eye of the storm surrounding Kevin Pietersen.

Now, four years on, even those

many pundits who were calling for Cook’s head in that bitter aftermath to the 2013-14 ashes thrashing must surely concede that england kept faith with the right man.

It was noticeable yesterday that the universally popular Cook paid tribute to his old mentor Graham Gooch because his biggest sadness after that ill-fated ashes tour was the england sacking their then batting coach.

Paul Downton, then the england team director, had insisted it was Cook who rang Gooch to tell him they were moving on without him and it is believed the relationship between two essex legends has never been quite the same since.

Hopefully Cook, who switched to using Gary Palmer as his batting coach in recent years, can now restore his closeness to Gooch and go on to emulate him by scoring thousands of runs in his later years for their beloved county.

It is typical of Cook that he should want to give something back to essex by committing to them from next year onwards, just as he gave all the money earned by his benefit year awarded by them to various charities.

Cook dearly wanted to be with essex when they sealed the championship last year and there is no reason, at 33, that he should not have several prolific years doing for them what he has done so productively with england.

and he will take to county cricket the legendary mental toughness that has seen him overcome a limited technique to go on and score more than 12,000 Test runs and 32 centuries. This is a player who, after his career best against India in 2011, was more concerned about the six runs he did not score rather than the 294 he did. It was, he said, a missed opportunity.

and we can only hope we will see this private man who eschews social media — ‘It’s like letting someone into your front room to shout at you,’ he once said — making one last century at The Oval and looking to the skies in that understated way of his in memory of the lost friend about whom he refuses to talk.

Then he will shuffle off selfconsciously to Chelmsford, the farm that has always been his release, the family that is about to see the addition of a third child and perhaps even the Test Match

Special commentary box. Really, we will never see his like again.