COOKING WITH GAS WITH ‘COACH CHEF’

AFTER the second Test against the West Indies this winter, we were 2-0 down and I wasn’t feeling great about my batting, having scored 14 and 11.

If I’m honest, over the last year I’d overthought things when it comes to my batting. So I felt I needed something to try to get back to my best and thankfully in the third Test win in St Lucia I managed to score 79 and 48 not out and batted much better than I had for a long while.

When I spoke to the media I said I had looked back at some footage from the hundred I got against New Zealand at Lord’s in 2015 and it had really helped.

What I didn’t say was who had pointed me in that direction – the one and only Sir Alastair Cook!

After Antigua I was thinking who should I chat to about my batting. I’ve worked for years with Mark Ramprakash and Graham Thorpe and have them as batting coaches, but I wanted someone who was coming from more of a player’s point of view with it and that is why I went to Cooky.

I had a 45-minute WhatsApp conversation with him where I said at the start, ‘Because you’re out the team now I want to ask you something. I want an honest opinion on my batting’.

I’ve got so much respect for him and I know that he’ll tell me the truth so we had a good conversation and he mentioned Lord’s and we had a chat about that.

I batted with Cooky for the whole time while I was out there during that innings so it was something he had seen close up and he knows a thing or two about scoring runs.

After the next Test he texted me: “I should be your coach now!”