There are three ways to go with Alastair ‘Cooked’ Cook. Everyone sticks their head in the sand and just allows things to keep going as is and hope he finds form with the bat and by a miracle discovers some tactical brains from somewhere. Two: he steps down from the captaincy to concentrate on his batting. Three: the most radical of all, he has a complete break away from the game.
How has it come to this? Unfortunately it has not happened overnight. I made observations about his inept tactics that were interpreted as a personal attack last summer when England were winning, so it is not just jumping on him after losing six of his last seven Tests and cannot score a run. Australia could have drawn 2-2 last summer, and the only reason they had a sniff was because of Cook’s negativity. Otherwise Australia were not good enough to be in the hunt, and England would have won 4-0 if they had been aggressive and ruthless.
The most disappointing thing for me is that he has not learned or improved after a horrible 5-0 drumming in Australia, in fact he has got worse. His captaincy at Lord’s was terrible, then on Monday at Headingley I witnessed the worst day of captaincy I have ever seen at international level in almost 25 years in the game. It was horrific, and I am not the only one singing that tune.
He just does not get it. Everyone watching could see the game needed a change of pace; bowl the spinner or make the seamers try and actually get Angelo Mathews out. You just cannot bowl the same stuff over after over like he did - good captains try things and are proactive, not hopeful.
This column is not a personal attack and never has been Alastair. Mate, you need to improve tactically or England need someone else in the job. And I am not the only one saying it. Please speak to Michael Vaughan, Nasser Hussain and other successful captains who were tough, ruthless and got it.
Also, if I was an Aussie cheerleader, as the ECB thinks I am, I would not be criticising Cook. I would be saying keep him in the job because that would be the best thing for Australia during the Ashes next year.
I have always been open to talking to Alastair, like I always have with any other player from any country, if they wanted a chat over a beer. I am not saying I am a guru, but I would like to think I was an aggressive captain. I did not take offence and I was not upset by his comments about me before Headingley. He felt that way and he has a right to say it publicly.
Good on him. But do not accuse commentators of making personal attacks and say “something should be done”, when I am doing the same as you. KP got fined for something similar but you escaped.
What should we all do? Keep saying Cook will be OK? Sorry, we are there to give our opinion. Agree or disagree but it is our opinion and in the case of Cook, lots of people including me think it is time for him to step down as captain.
Perhaps he has to think to himself, “you know what, I had a shocker”. If he said in public, “yes I had a bad day and I have to get better, I will improve” then people would give him a chance. But he is not saying that, he is getting worse which is why there is so much pressure and concern about him and it is affecting his batting.
With Cook as captain England will always be conservative and get confused about what to do when games are in the balance because he retreats so quickly. At Lord’s he had the chance to declare earlier, and if that had happened, England would have won. We saw at Headingley that he let the game drift because he just did not know what to do, which led to the whole team not having a plan.
He continued with the same tactics for so long. No one could believe what they were seeing. Just look at how well Mathews handled and juggled his bowlers. The same goes for Clarke in Australia and the way he used Mitchell Johnson and Nathan Lyon. That is what good leaders do. The have a feel for the game, a tempo and an understanding of what needs to be done and how to get back into a game. There is no way at Headingley, in those conditions, that Sri Lanka’s seamers should outbowl England’s. You have to ask why that happened? It is not all Cook’s fault. The bowlers should have said at times, ‘please can I have two slips because I want to get Mathews out’. But they are so worried about their figures and not going for runs that they lost their aggressive edge. When I think back to Hussain, he started England’s aggressive approach. Vaughan took it on and they beat an Australian side at its best because they were aggressive, and here is a tip for free Alastair, if you are not sure what to do tactically, then take an aggressive approach, not a negative one and you will not be far away.
Some observers use the series win in India as a defence of Cook. Yes, it was a great victory to come back from one Test down. But it was not built on tactical brilliance. It was on the back of some magnificent individual performances by Kevin Pietersen, who you sacked, Monty Panesar, who you will not select, Graeme Swann and Cook himself. The senior players need to stand up now, as the youngsters are doing OK. Now the ECB has to do what is right for Alastair and not just blindly back him because it would save face for a few senior people at the board who have pinned their reputations on his success.
If he muddles through and carries on he could come good and score a hundred at Trent Bridge against India which will be a huge relief. But his tactical nous will not change, and if a game is in the balance with Cook at the helm then I am here to tell you, England will lose.
Mark Taylor had a shocking run of form at one stage as Australia captain but he was able to ride it out because we were winning. We could carry him. It is not the same in a losing team.
The other option is to take a break. Nobody likes doing it. You get accused of being soft but I know the benefit my enforced lay-off gave me. I had a year out of the game and it was the best thing that could have happened to me. I could rest mind and body and returned to have my best years.
When you are in the bubble of playing you live and breath cricket. You have dinner after a day’s play with cricketers and sometimes you just need a break from it all and Alastair Cook looks to me to be confused and mentally drained.
It is such a shame because he is a good bloke, a great role model for the ECB and I am sure speaks well to the players in the dressing room, but a captain has to lead from the front and have tactics that will change the course of the game or turn a losing position into a winning one by being ruthless. He will set the style of play and the guys will follow him. That has been absent for a long time now. He is not thinking straight. He is not there. He is confused. He does not know what to do and because he is in a rut with his form it makes life a lot worse. You just cannot captain a team in transition in that frame of mind. I hope myself and everyone else saying the same thing are all wrong and that 12 months time he leading the side well. Let’s see.
Shane Warne
THE TELEGRAPH
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