Alastair Cook vows to rediscover his best form for England after frustrating winter
Get daily updates directly to your inbox + Subscribe Thank you for subscribing! Could not subscribe, try again later Invalid Email
Alastair Cook has vowed to plough on and answer his critics by rediscovering his best form for England after a miserable and inconsistent winter.
His threadbare return of 23 runs in four innings in New Zealand came on the back of an indifferent Ashes, and left many wondering whether the end is nigh for England's greatest run scorer.
But far from consider his retirement, Cook is determined to prove that the winter was just a dip in form and he can still offer skipper Joe Root major contributions this summer and beyond.
“If you play 100-odd Test matches there’s going to be little periods when you don’t score the runs,” admitted Cook. “But I’ve always managed to turn it around.
“I just never got going in New Zealand. That tour kind of passed me by before I even got past the fifth over, which is frustrating. You go all that way, you train, and you just don’t turn up. It does happen.
(Image: AFP)
(Image: REUTERS)
“One thing I do know is that it doesn’t get any easier. But while I still want to get out and bat and put myself under pressure and sit in the changing room enjoying all that stuff, I’ve got to do it.
“Over the last six months, I’ve never been quite so inconsistent though, and since I’ve come home I’ve started to look at my preparation. Have I got it right? Do I need to change things?”
Two double hundreds in his last 18 innings tells you he can still perform, but a top score of 39 in the remaining 16 knocks tells you it has been feast or famine which is why questions about his future refuse to die down.
Cook is one game away from equalling Allan Border's record for playing 153 consecutive Test matches and while new national selector Ed Smith is not going to stop it from being broken, the pressure is on the former skipper.
Launching Yorkshire Tea's National Cricket Week in conjunction with Chance to Shine, which runs in schools from 18-22 June, giving thousands of children across the country the chance to learn and play through cricket, Cook added: “My job never changes. If you don't score runs there's been times throughout my career where people have questioned my place like they are questioning it now.
“If someone taps me on the shoulder and tells me they don't want me to open the batting for England it is going to hurt at this precise moment of time because I want to carry on.
(Image: AFP)
“Scoring a hundred in six hours is very satisfying and I hope I've got a few more in me.”
As the man with more Test hundreds to his name than any other Englishman, Cook is understandably concerned about the way in which white-ball cricket is dominating the agenda, not because he doesn't like it, but because of the marginalising affect it is having on the red-ball game.
Cook is open minded about the new 100-ball concept which is due to arrive in 2020, but he remains concerned at the impact it could have on Test cricket which has been the pre-eminent format for so long, but is being squeezed.
“I do fear for long form cricket,” he added. “Sport is an entertainment in one sense, but it's also a business and obviously all the money is going into T20 cricket at the moment.
“It’s going to be very hard to talk kids into the longest form - why would you at this precise moment in time, put yourself through the stresses and strains of a five-day game, when there is more incentives for the three-hour crash-bang-wallop.
“I don't have a problem with the new format. T20 changed the landscape of cricket and whether this 100-ball game will change the landscape I don't know but I don't think we should totally write it off.”