COOK HITS A TON TO SILENCE SCEPTICS
Relief was etched on the face of Alastair Cook as he soaked up the applause from all corners of the MCG after one of the most important of his 32 Test hundreds.
Cook knew there might not be many more opportunities to keep racking up the landmarks had he gone through the whole of another sorry, beaten Ashes series without a single significant score. He could have easily been tempted to jump into retirement before england were ready to give him the push.
instead the second day of the fourth Test belonged to a former england captain who now knows for sure this will not end up being his farewell tour.
Cook may have broken almost every record in england’s batting book but he had never gone 11 Test innings without even a half-century before.
That is why his return to form with a quite magnificent unbeaten hundred — reached off a charitable last over from Steve Smith — was the most significant factor of a day that was dominated by england.
None more so than Cook who, seven years, 35 innings and 18 Tests since his last Ashes hundred, now added a threefigure score in Melbourne to those he has enjoyed at the other four major Australian grounds.
The miserable displays of england’s key players is the biggest reason why the Ashes have been again lost in Australia after three Tests but this was the day Joe Root’s senior lieutenants hit back.
first there was Stuart Broad, showing why it is always foolish to write him off with his best figures of the calendar year.
Then, after england had enjoyed the rarity of Australia collapsing to lose their last seven wickets for 67, came one of the biggest displays of character that Cook has produced in his 12 years at the top.
The day started with Australia’s immovable object in Smith at the crease on a ground where he had not been dismissed in over three years, while amassing an extraordinary average of 137.
While the Australia captain was there, this fourth Test looked like following a very familiar script but Smith’s hopes of leading his team to the score of 500-plus that looked assured after the first morning were quickly dashed.
Tom Curran saw his first Test wicket disappear on the first day when he overstepped after having David Warner caught on 99 but now he claimed the one bigger scalp in the Australia side when Smith dragged on a wide one.
The door was slightly ajar and england barged through in the form of their big two in Broad and Jimmy Anderson, who showed the skills on a slow, flat drop-in pitch that have brought them more than 900 Test wickets.
england had enjoyed an excellent session but their problem here has been backing it up and they needed Cook to set the tone that has proved so elusive ever since his double hundred against West indies last summer. How he delivered.
Cook, who turned 33 on Christmas Day, has seen his hunger for the battle questioned here, even though he has been spending more time in the nets and with his favourite coach, Gary Palmer, than ever before.
But Cook has always been tougher than he looks and now there was a purpose about him and a certainty about his footwork against an Australian attack that had much of its venom drawn by the MCG surface.
Mitchell Starc was missing with a heel injury and Pat Cummins was struggling to stay on the field through an illness that made life easier for an england team who had been battered into submission in Perth.
it seemed the whole of this country had taken offence at Anderson’s pre-Test comments about the lack of depth in Australia’s fast-bowling reserves, but they were proven spot on by the performance of Starc’s replacement Jackson Bird.
Bird was slower than every ‘fast’ bowler on either side bar Curran,
which left the remaining key components in Australia’s attack, Josh Hazlewood and Nathan Lyon, to carry the bulk of the load.
It was Lyon who dismissed Mark Stoneman with another outstanding catch off his own bowling and it was Hazlewood who claimed the second wicket with the help of both his victim in James Vince and the umpire in Sundaram Ravi.
Vince looked out to the naked eye when Hazlewood thudded one into his pads and was happy to walk off once Ravi had raised his finger and Cook had asked him whether he had hit it while they considered a review.
Trouble was, Hot Spot revealed Vince had got a thin inside-edge on to pad which he clearly didn’t hear himself, so he paid for his unselfishness and again failed to deliver the big score his classy shots demand he should be making.
If only Vince had anything like the mental strength of Cook who, like Broad, sums up the adage of form being temporary but class permanent. Only when Smith dropped him at slip off Mitchell Marsh on 66 was Cook in trouble.
Joining him in an unbroken stand of 112 as England closed on 192 for two, just 135 behind, was his successor as captain in Root, described by Ricky Ponting as a ‘little boy lost’ before this Test and who badly needed runs himself.
Cook was helped to a hundred that sees him draw level with Steve Waugh by Smith bowling himself at the death of the second day and resumed on day three on 104 and with Root on 49.
England really do now have a chance to put themselves in a position to win a Test here in Australia. This time they must not let it go to waste.