This could still be our glory year!
SIR ALASTAIR COOK ON RETIRING AND WINNING OUR WOOLDRIDGE AWARD
Sir AlAstAir Cook is thinking back to that golden day last summer when he made a century against india in his last test innings. When the Oval crowd rose to him for a prolonged ovation in one of the most emotional and memorable farewells any cricketer can have experienced.
‘All my friends and family were there that day,’ said cricket’s latest knight of the realm.
‘they hadn’t come on the first day. Mum and dad, people from my childhood, farmers. You can’t describe it. it was like someone was looking after me.
‘i’m sure the cricketing gods will have payback at some stage but for five days, with Jimmy Anderson getting his record wicket to complete the win, it was perfect.
‘You could say i might have taken that last catch off Jimmy for it to be even more perfect, but i’d have probably dropped it anyway!
‘i look back now and i still can’t really believe it happened, especially as everyone knew that was my last test. to produce an innings like that and to go out with people thinking you’re a better player than you are is a wonderful goodbye.’
He was a player good enough to score almost 12,500 runs in his 161 tests, with 33 hundreds, and is now having breakfast in st lucia with Sportsmail. Cook is finally on the other side of the fence, having dipped his toe in the media waters with BBC radio and The Sunday Times.
‘ i was in the press box in Antigua and it struck me how detached i felt from the game,’ said Cook. ‘ that was really strange, but in one way you need to be because you have to say what you see without that tunnel vision you have as a player.
‘Jonathan Agnew is a good person to learn off because he’s a brilliant broadcaster and the calmness and clarity with which he does things is a real skill.
‘the challenge of learning this is great. the family farm plays such a big part in my life and i genuinely love going back there. in some ways i’d like to spend every day there, but there would be a big hole in my life if i didn’t stay involved in cricket.
‘i really don’t know what the future holds, but this has made me realise how much i enjoy talking about the game.’
it is a very relaxed sir Alastair — ‘it feels a bit odd when people call me that’ — who is contemplating a new life with no regrets over the timing of his farewell, aged 33, at a time when he was still clearly good enough to dig deep.
‘it would have been nice to get through to this summer’s Ashes, but unfortunately i couldn’t get there,’ he said. ‘You can’t just hang on to do stuff. the commitment and desire you need to be at the top is extraordinary and i’d been hammered enough times to know this was the time to go.
‘ the india series wasn’t the only reason i retired. it was the culmination of 18 months where things had probably changed in my life. i’d started questioning that absolute dedication and desire, and i’m talking one or two per cent i always needed and had.
‘so it was time to look in the mirror and realise i’d had my lot. to stay at the top you have to be totally driven, but something had changed. it’s hard to pinpoint it, but it had.
‘in some ways it was sad because i was living the dream trying to win games of cricket for England. What better thing can there be than that, but no one plays for ever. i can sit back now and think, “What a way to go”.’
two weeks after that game at the Oval, Cook’s third child, first son Jack, came along and then he learned of his knighthood. Now he is this year’s overwhelming winner of our ian Wooldridge Award for sporting excellence and, most importantly, doing things the right way, with the Corinthian spirit the great Woolers always so admired.
Cook continued: ‘the Oval was the bookmark and then to receive a knighthood. i can’t even begin to try to put it in words. it’s such a huge honour to be bestowed on anyone, let alone a bloke from Essex, so i’m very proud. the Wooldridge award will probably be my last honour now!’
He has certainly been thrown in at the media deep end, watching England’s Antigua horror show, and is hoping for something much better in saturday’s final test.
‘there was no desire to go out and bat, that’s for sure,’ he said of watching England suffer. ‘ it’s something you forget very quickly.
‘i wouldn’t say it was an unplayable wicket, but it was tricky and there were some balls where you