Cook’s date for crunch talks with Strauss
Alastair Cook’s future will be resolved tomorrow when he meets andrew strauss to decide if the time has come to hand over the England captaincy to Joe root.
as root arrived here in india late last night ahead of sunday’s first one- day international, after his brief paternity leave, it emerged he will soon know if he is about to be handed the biggest challenge of his meteoric career.
Cook has kept his cards close to his chest since arriving home from England’s chastening test tour of india just before Christmas and has confided only in close family before making the biggest decision of his professional life. Even the timing of tomorrow’s D-Day meeting has been a closely guarded secret, with Cook adamant he will not speak to anyone involved in English cricket before he has properly talked things through with strauss.
that means coach trevor Bayliss and senior players including Jimmy anderson and stuart Broad — who are close to Cook — still do not know if they will be working with a new test captain when they face south africa in July.
But the odds remain on Cook telling his former opening partner and now boss that his race is run and he will not be able to fulfil his last great captaincy ambition of avenging England’s 5-0 ashes defeat in australia next winter.
the decision will almost certainly be down to Cook, and strauss is unlikely to push him if the England leader believes he has the hunger and desire to remain at the helm, hopefully bowing out with a third ashes win as captain.
only if strauss is adamant that root is not ready for the biggest job in domestic cricket will the team director take a leading role in influencing the decision of a captain who remains hugely popular and respected within his team.
indeed, as far as senior players and management here are concerned, Cook’s future should not even be an issue at the moment with all England’s ashes planning revolving around him still being in charge.
Yet such was the scale of England’s defeats in the last two tests of their 4-0 thrashing in india and the air of curiously relaxed resignation about Cook that all signs point to a change of leader now. root is certainly not pushing for the job but he has told those close to him that he would accept the captaincy if it came up now because it is simply too big to turn down whenever the chance arises.
it is a concern that root, at 26, is the only viable alternative to Cook because his batting is so important to England across all three formats and he will be a key figure in their hopes of winning the 50-over Champions trophy this summer.
England face their busiest ever summer followed by their busiest ever winter and root will be integral to that, with strauss determined that white- ball cricket should now be treated with equal importance as the test game.
at any other time root, who arrived here too late to play in today’s second warm-up game against india a, would surely have been rested from the three-match one-day series and three twenty20 internationals that follow here, particularly as his partner Carrie gave birth to their son, alfred, last saturday.
But that was ruled out because England’s one-day fortunes are imperative in this of all years, leaving root to quite possibly inherit the test captaincy at a time when he is too vital to be rested in any format.
Cook, who will play on as a batsman for England whenever he steps down as captain, has always been adamant he will go when he believes it is in the best interests of the team to do so.
that time may well have come, even though it will be asking a lot of root to step into his shoes at this point.