52COOK Daily Express WILL TURN UP HEAT
Former skipper won’t be afraid to criticise his old team-mates in TV role
SIR ALASTAIR COOK will bring a touch of cricketing royalty to BBC coverage this summer.
But it won’t be the fact he has scored more than 3,000 Test runs more than any other Englishman nor that he is the nation’s greatest Test centurion, 10 ahead of anyone else, that could make him a hit as a TV pundit.
When cricket returns to BBC TV today for the first time in more than 20 years, it is Cook’s ability to be fearless in his opinions that is set to make him popular.
Cook will join
Isa Guha, Michael Vaughan,
Alison
Mitchell and Phil Tufnell in analysing the first Test against the
West Indies behind closed doors.
And he will be alongside Jonathan Agnew for Test Match Special on the radio as he was at Headingley last summer as he voices his opinion, even if it goes against his former team-mates, to whom he remains close.
“I would have loved to see Ollie Pope bat at four,” said Cook of the decision to leave Pope at six and play Zak Crawley and Joe Denly at three and four.
“I would like to have seen a youngster come in at six, either a James Bracey or a Dan Lawrence, but I can see why they have made this call for those guys to battle it out until Joe Root comes back.
“When you are playing for your place, the people who come through that and deliver the goods, you know that when the pressure is on in a game, they will come through for you as well.”
It is that experience and insight as England’s longest-serving Test captain, and a man who 33 times raised his bat in celebration of a three-figure score, that Guha will be hoping to tease out of Cook, who might not be quite as slick and accomplished a talker as Vaughan, left, who is happiest when the cameras are on.
Carlos Brathwaite will provide the West Indian angle for the series.
And the response to Guha as the first female lead cricket presenter for the network has been positive. “It has been good,” said the 35-year-old who has 113 England caps.
“Doing the archive shows revived so many memories and that Dominic Cork hat-trick in particular in 1995 I remember so clearly.
“Growing up I wanted to be Darren Gough or Dominic Cork and got the chance to play for England, but now it is about creating new memories for the next generation of fans and budding cricketers. We’ve got a great team that can work well together and I’m looking forward