HOW COOK CAME BACK FROM THE BRINK
England captain reveals when he wanted to quit
ALASTAIR COOK only knew the answer to the big question that has been gnawing away at him all summer when he woke up the morning after the incredible day England won the Ashes at Trent Bridge with a Test to spare.
‘I pretty much decided last Sunday,’ said the England captain. ‘I woke up and immediately started thinking about trying to win the Ashes 4-1 and then about what we will have to do to win against Pakistan. It came quickly to me to start planning ahead and that told me that I probably wanted to carry on a bit longer.’
Cook is talking about continuing as England captain and revealing, for the first time, that he has thought long and hard throughout the summer about stepping down at the end of this series, whether the Ashes were won or lost.
‘It absolutely has been on my mind,’ said the captain, who refused to quit during the dark months following the humiliating 5-0 defeat by Australia. ‘At the start of this summer I didn’t know what was going to happen and I wasn’t sure if I would continue beyond the Ashes.
‘But while you’ve still got the opportunity to be England captain and you’ve still got more to give, which I now feel I have, then you need to carry on and give it your all.
‘I think that’s why most people stay on until the bitter end. It’s such an honour to lead England and the moment you know you haven’t got any more to give is the moment to stop doing it.
‘That usually comes at a tough time when you think, “I can’t force myself to go through this again”. I’d love to go out on a high but I kind of knew pretty quickly after the end of the game at Trent Bridge that I still have that drive to take this team forward.
‘I haven’t spoken to Andrew Strauss yet and I don’t want to look too far ahead, the one-day stuff has taught me that, but as long as they still want me, and as long as Trevor Bayliss doesn’t have other ideas, I’ll carry on.’
Clearly, it has been far from an automatic decision for Cook, who, at 30, could look forward to five more years making a record-breaking number of runs if he returned to the ranks now and became a senior player for captain-in-waiting Joe Root to lean on.
Even now Cook chooses words carefully and qualifies every statement of intent with words like ‘probably’.
Yet there is no doubt he is still wanted, by players who respect him as a captain and man, by a director of cricket in Strauss who has long been one of his biggest backers and by the coaching team of Bayliss and Paul Farbrace.
Cook has had regular conversations with Farbrace in particular in the last couple of weeks over whether it is the right thing to stay at the helm of England’s new era and has been told that he is very much still the best man for the job and that he has become a better captain for the tough times he has endured.
Significantly, it is also felt within the England set-up that Cook and Bayliss, thrown together just ahead of the Ashes, have already forged a productive alliance as captain and coach and complement each other perfectly.
It may surprise that it is even an issue after a thrilling series in which England overcame the odds to seal an emphatic win under a once conservative captain now transformed into an attacking leader.
Yet the bitter aftermath of that thrashing 18 months ago, which saw Cook become the target for the bile of those enraged by the sacking of Kevin Pietersen, took its toll on him and his family and made him think hard about his future.
‘There have been some really dark moments in the last year or so,’ said Cook in his first proper interview since the Ashes victory. ‘There was the KP affair and that dragged English cricket through some bad periods. I bore the brunt of that negativity and it took it out of me and my family. To come through that means a lot.
‘This is not a “poor me” thing but I felt in the really low moments that I was getting blamed for absolutely everything that had gone wrong. Even when we had a bad day and I hadn’t done anything it was still my fault. There were times when I found it very hard to deal with and was very close to giving it all up. To stay strong through it all — I’m proud of that. ‘I stayed on then probably because of my stubbornness and maybe to prove people wrong. I wanted to show I could captain England to success and was single-minded in trying to do that. Hopefully I have done that now.’
He credits one man in particular, a much-derided figure who has twice been sacked as England coach, for getting him to the point now where the
England team and their captain have thrillingly captured the public’s imagination.
‘The unwavering support of Peter Moores for me as a leader undeniably kept me going through the bad times,’ said Cook. ‘There is no doubt that he and my wife Alice, on totally different levels, one personal and one professional, got me through the really dark spells.
‘I was sorry to see Peter go because he was trying to map out the way forward for English cricket. To lose the Ashes 5-0 and then to lose some senior players takes time to recover from. I could understand that there wasn’t any patience — and there’s no doubt that was down to the KP affair — but Andrew came in and decided there
wa still too much history linked to Peter Moores. That is fair enough. That’s what you as director of cricket. You make the big decisions and none of us can argue with that but Peter played a massive role in developing our play-ers. They became better under Peter Moores, there’s no doubt about that. It's not coincidence to my mind that Notts have had a considerable up-turn in performance since Peter went there. He will always be a great coach.’
There is also no doubt that England started to improve from the low of the World Cup to the highs of this summer when Moores went and Farbrace initially took over before linking up with understated Australian Bayliss. At the centre of an extraordinary transformation has been captain who admits he has changed to stay in tune with the overwhelming desire for posi-ti ve, attacking cricket that has swept through the game and is very much promoted by Bayliss and Farbrace.
I think I have changed as a cap-tain,’ said Cook, speaking at a Nat West cricket event. ‘Stubborn-es s has helped me throughout my career, there’s no doubt about and the single-mindedness I needed to succeed as a player got me through the dark times. I’ve always felt should do the captaincy in the last few months was right for me but in the months I’ve opened my eyes a little bit more. I thought “Let’s try to do it a bit differently”. And the side has evolved alongside me.
‘The Andrew Strauss team that dominated world cricket was a very methodical one and the side I inherited was too. Then we lost 5-0 in the Ashes and it all fell apart. Lots of players went and those who have come in are more free-spirited, like Ben Stokes, Joe Root, Jos Buttler, Mo Ali and Mark Wood. They are different kinds of players and having them there driving a different kind of environment meant I had to change as a leader. Now it feels like my side.’
That change has been epitomised by how Cook out-captained Michael
Funkiness comes with time... I have changed as a captain. The last few months have opened my eyes
Clarke, long regarded as one of the best leaders in world cricket, throughout the Ashes, culminating with ‘funky’ leadership at Trent Bridge, like declaring 20 minutes before lunch and attacking Australia with six slips.
‘Funkiness comes with time and personnel. I’m not faulting the past policy of starving the opposition of runs, it worked bloody well and that suited the personalities of those players and those in charge at the time.
‘But now we’re less bothered about the run-rates our bowlers go at — it’s still there because you can’t go at seven an over — and there are moments now where we can have six slips and others where we can have no slips and lots of fielders in front of the wicket, like at Cardiff. We’ve adapted.
‘When Paul Farbrace took over temporarily we talked about trying to show off our talent and Farby had the courage to go with that approach knowing that Trev believed in it as well and would play that way when he came in.
‘Farby has been incredibly important this summer while Trev has been getting his feet under the table. Trev is a calming influence and one of those guys that everyone has respect for, probably because he doesn’t speak too much.
‘But I think you’ll see the Trevor Bayliss influence a lot more over the next 12 months. No smart man would come in and bulldoze his way through things and make too many changes straightaway because that would be foolish if you don’t know the players and the system.
‘It’s great in one sense that the players now have a coach that no one knew when he first came in because he has a different set of eyes and you have to earn his respect. It’s been a very good appointment by Andrew because the players like working with him already. That doesn’t mean they didn’t like working with Moorsey but you will see more and more of Trev’s ways as we go along.’
Now that immediate future seems certain to include a captain who displayed a rare show of emotion in the aftermath of victory. ‘It was a release from where I had been over the last 18 months or so,’ said Cook. ‘It made it extra-special, without a doubt. To win any Ashes series is incredible, but we weren’t expected to win this one by many people.
‘Even I didn’t think we were quite ready to win it. I thought we needed another year growing as a side but I was proven wrong by the guys. They were absolutely outstanding and grew very quickly.
‘Last summer we beat India 3-1 so the potential was there but the players have become match-hardened now and know how to win the big moments. And this side is younger than the one in 2009 who won the Ashes and went on to become the best in the world in 2011 so it’s a really exciting time.
‘Let’s not get too carried away with world domination. One step at a time. The next challenge is to do something that no English side has done and that’s win an Ashes series 4-1 at home and then after that it will be winning away. Can these guys adapt to conditions that are not quite so favourable? What’s so exciting is that I believe they can. It’s been an absolute privilege to experi- ence what we’ve done in the last few weeks and I want that to continue.’
And after a summer of uncertainty, Cook seems ready to continue as England captain.