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After two months away from the game, Alastair Cook is back in action with Essex and facing up to the post-captaincy chapter of his England career

George Dobell03-Apr-20172:21

Cook ready for next phase

Whatever Alastair Cook was meant to be doing with a cricket net – erecting it, presumably – at Copdock Cricket Club, there was a while when it seemed to be getting the better of him.Thrashing around like a recently caught salmon, Cook’s contribution to the NatWest Cricket Force event turned out to be more about boosting morale than adding practical assistance. As he abandoned the net and attempted to paint the new score-box, the thought occurred that a post-cricket career in DIY seems unlikely.But perhaps such a moment serves as a useful metaphor for a man in search of a new role? On his first official outing since resigning the captaincy, Cook admitted that the transition from key man to last year’s man had not been entirely comfortable. It’s not that he regrets his decision – he still feels it was right for him and the team – but he knows he will never have a better job and there is, undoubtedly, a sense of loss.It would be easy to portray Cook as a man from a different era. While the rest of the world has decided impatience is a virtue, Cook is still waiting for the ball he can nudge off his hips. While it seems some are more interested in travelling in style than arriving safely, Cook is still proceeding cautiously. While the new generation amaze us with the shots they can play, Cook is still making a living from the balls he leaves.And yet, he’s only 32. And, in a side whose problems of late have been less about scoring too slowly as being dismissed too quickly, he has qualities that remain of value. While neither of his most significant immediate predecessors – Michael Vaughan and Andrew Strauss – returned to the side once they had given up the captaincy, Cook’s story is far from over. Keaton Jennings and Haseeb Hameed have offered promise in their brief opportunities, but the procession of opening partners Cook has had in recent years underlines his enduring value to the Test team. He may have lived the first line of his obituary, but he still has an important role for England.Alastair Cook helps out at Copdock Cricket Club for NatWest Cricket Force•Getty Images”It has good days and bad days,” Cook says of the decision to resign the captaincy. “It’s such a big thing to give away.”I don’t like the word ‘relief’. A lot of people have said it, but it hasn’t felt like that. I don’t know why.”I won’t miss going into all the extra press conferences. But being at the centre of it, being involved in a lot of decision-making, was the excitement of the job. Not doing that any more, will probably take a while to get used to.”Ultimately I know it was the right decision for myself and the team but that doesn’t make it any easier. It has been time to move on as a person and a player.”A period away from the game – he did not, he says, pick up a bat for two months following the India tour – has given him time, not just to recover his enthusiasm for it, but reflect on his period as captain and cricket’s apparently diminishing place in the public consciousness. And while he is amused by the much-quoted statistic that suggests he was less recognisable to young people in England and Wales than the wrestler John Cena, he also acknowledges its significance.”My best mate sent it to me and said ‘don’t worry, he’s a legend’,” Cook says. “It made me laugh in one sense.”But it’s probably a realisation of where cricket is in this county. There’s a lot of work to be done. It shows we can’t take this great game for granted. We – everyone – has to work hard so that it is looked after for the next generation.”Cook became aware of cricket’s problem during the 2013 Ashes. While there had been a time when an Ashes win was worthy of open-top bus rides and MBEs all round, the success of 2013 was met, if not with ambivalence, then certainly not the enthusiasm of a few years previously. As a result, it was decided his team would attempt to engage more with supporters and the realisation dawned that, for all the money gained from subscription TV, the value of free to air could not be overstated.”That 2013 series was quite an interesting one in terms of the fact we did win and it didn’t really capture people’s imagination,” Cook says. “Whether people had taken success against Australia for granted, or it was expected that we would beat that team, I don’t know.”For whatever reason, it didn’t [capture the public imagination]. That asked a few questions to everyone. Is it about winning? Is it about entertaining? Ultimately it’s about both. As professional sportsmen, you’re there to win games of cricket. You’re judged on how well you do: did you score runs and win? The balance is: are people coming to watch you play?”We did certain things to be more approachable. We had more interaction with the public. We saw that responsibility from 2013. We saw we needed to do that. Peter Moores started that in 2014 and it’s been taken on more and more. The players have been brilliant at doing that. It helps with the kind of cricketers we have. You’ve seen when we’ve won certain games, we signed autographs for an hour and a half. Players have realised that is very important to the game and to their job and the future of cricket.”Sky have been unbelievable supporters of England cricket and done a lot to financially secure the game. But it would be great if we can get it [the new-team T20 competition] on terrestrial TV. I’d love to see a Test on terrestrial TV again. It can only help.”England’s Ashes victory in 2013 failed to capture the public’s imagination•PA PhotosHe never, he says, felt obliged to change his style of game – or his style of captaincy – to embrace the modern fashion for more aggressive cricket. And while you sense there is still some frustration at the perception of his ODI side – they were, for a while, ranked No. 1 in the world and went close to securing that first global ODI trophy – time has helped him accept its flaws, too.”We should have won that game,” he says, referring to the Champions Trophy final of 2013. “If it was a 50-over game I think we would have won quite easily. We were playing some really good one-day cricket.”Would it have changed how my one-day captaincy was looked at? Absolutely. If you’ve won a major trophy, yes.”But should’ve, could’ve. Ultimately we didn’t win a major trophy. And the game changed very quickly with the changes to the laws, and we were very slow to adapt. I have to take a lot of responsibility as I was captain.”Cook will return to List A cricket this summer – his most recent List A game was in December 2014, just before he was sacked as ODI captain and dropped as a player – but he is realistic enough to know there will be no England recall. “The side is looking for different players than what I can deliver,” he says. There is unlikely to be a T20 return simply because England’s Test schedule would appear to prohibit it, but he is an advocate of the new-team competition: “it’s certainly something the ECB should try,” he says.But he is back in the nets with Gary Palmer, the freelance batting coach he uses, and he is still looking for ways to improve. With a more open technique, he is said to be hitting the ball better than for some time – he made a pre-season century against Middlesex – and has rediscovered his enthusiasm for a game that, by the end of the India tour, looked as if it had become a bit of a trial.”It’s the next phase of my career,” he says. “I’ve really enjoyed playing for Essex in pre-season and that’s the most important thing. I’m refreshed and raring to go. It’s time to move on.”Alastair Cook was speaking during NatWest CricketForce at Copdock CC. Now in its 17th year, NatWest CricketForce has grown into one of the largest sports volunteering initiatives in the UK, with over 2,200 local clubs registering this year. Find out more at natwest.com/cricket

Stats highlights of this season’s Syed Mushtaq Ali Trophy

Bharath Seervi21-Jan-20162005-06 Last time Uttar Pradesh won a domestic title, before winning this Syed Mushtaq Ali Trophy. They had won the Ranji Trophy title on that occasion. They ended as a runner-up in the 2007-08 and 2008-09 Ranji seasons, and also in Ranji One-Day Trophy in 2005-06. On this occasion, they beat Baroda by 38 runs in the final at the Wankhede Stadium. Two seasons ago, in 2013-14, against the same oppositions and at the same venue they had lost by three runs in the final.2 Times a team has won the Syed Mushtaq Ali Trophy without losing a match. Uttar Pradesh won all their nine games. Bengal had done this in 2010-11, winning each of their eight matches.60-31 Win-loss record of teams chasing in this competition; the win-loss ratio of 1.935 for teams fielding first is the highest in any season. This is the third time when teams chasing have won more matches than teams batting first, after the 2010-11 season when the win-loss ratio was 1.093 (32 out of 68) and the 2012-13 season when it was 1.285 (45 out of 81). Incidentally, all of the 16 Super League matches were won by teams fielding first. The final was won by the team batting first though.7.17 Average run rate this series – second-best in a Syed Mushtaq Ali Trophy series after 2009-10, when the scoring-rate was 7.44 an over. Also, the average runs per wicket in this series of 21.03 is the second-best after 2009-10, when it was 21.27.21.46 Average opening stand – the worst for any of the seven seasons played so far. In 2012-13, an average of 21.73 runs were scored per dismissal, which was the previous worst. The highest average by opening stands was in 2009-10, when it was 29.08. There were four century partnerships for the first wicket this season though, second-most after 2009-10 and 2013-14 when there were five.28.9 Balls per six in the tournament – least among all seasons. Last season, a six was hit every 30.4 deliveries and one every 33.9 balls in the season before that. As many as 715 sixes were hit in this series. The previous highest was 595 sixes in 2014-15. Overall, however, a boundary (fours and sixes) was hit every 7.3 balls in 2015-16, only the third least in a Syed Mushtaq Ali series.4 Centuries made in 2015-16, the joint second highest in a Syed Mushtaq Ali series after 2012-13 when there were six hundreds. There were four hundreds made last year as well.377 Runs scored by Baroda’s Hardik Pandya – the most by a batsman in a Syed Mushtaq Ali Trophy season going past Avi Barot’s 369 in 2013-14 for Haryana. Pandya played two consecutive innings of 81* off 51 and 86* off 46. Also, his average of 53.83 is the second highest in a season among the 12 batsmen who made 300 or more runs; Mayank Agarwal’s 61.40 in 2012-13 is the highest (scored 307 runs). Click here for highest run-getters in this season.39 Runs made in one over bowled by Delhi’s Akash Sudan in the last group match – the most expensive in T20 cricket beating the 38-run over by James Fuller for Gloucestershire against Sussex’s Scott Styris in England in 2012. The previous record for most runs in an over in T20s in India was the one bowled by Prasanth Parameswaran to Chris Gayle in 2011 IPL when 37 runs were leaked. Pandya plundered 34 runs off that Sudan over – the second highest by a batsman in a T20 in India after Gayle’s 36 runs off Parameswaran’s over.21 Sixes by Delhi’s Nitish Rana – most by anyone in a season going past Sagun Kamat (2013-14) and Tirumalasetti Suman (2014-15) who had hit 19 sixes. Pandya also hit 19 sixes this season with 14 of them in two consecutive innings.175.88 Rana’s strike rate – the highest by a batsman facing 150 or more balls in a season. He scored 299 runs in 170 balls at an average of 42.71, including three fifties with a highest of 97.3 Number of players who have scored 150-plus runs and taken 15 or more wickets as captain in any T20 series. Irfan Pathan – who captained Baroda – did it in this Syed Mushtaq Ali Trophy with 200 runs and 17 wickets in 10 matches. The other captains to do it before him are: Shakib Al Hasan, with 280 runs and 15 wickets in 11 matches in the 2011-12 Bangladesh Premier League and Dwayne Bravo, who made 173 runs and took 28 wickets in 13 matches in the Caribbean Premier League in 2015. Pathan averaged 40 with bat and 15.76 with ball this season.3 Times Cheepurapalli Stephen took four or more wickets in an innings playing for Andhra – most such hauls by anyone this year. Seven others have taken two such hauls in a season, including Ranjit Mali, Nathu Singh and Irfan Pathan.3 Centuries by Unmukt Chand in T20s, including the one he hit this year. He scored 108 playing for Delhi against Gujarat in a Super League match. His previous two centuries came in 2012-13 in consecutive innings. No India batsman has scored more than three T20 centuries; Rohit Sharma and Suresh Raina have three centuries each. Only Gayle (5) and David Warner (4) have scored more centuries in T20 cricket in India than Chand.

Stats highlights from the fourth day of the second Test between South Africa and West Indies in Port Elizabeth

Bishen Jeswant29-Dec-2014176 The partnership between Marlon Samuels and Kraigg Brathwaite, the highest third wicket partnership for West Indies against South Africa.64 Years since an overseas pair put together a higher partnership than the 176 runs posted by Samuels and Brathwaite at this venue. Australia’s Arthur Morris and Neil Harvey shared a 187-run stand in 1950, which is the highest partnership by an overseas pair for any wicket at this venue.3 Number of times that a team has been bowled out for less than 300 after two batsmen have posted centuries – Australia (against West Indies, 1968), South Africa (against India, in 2010) and New Zealand (against India, in 2009). West Indies are currently on 275 for 9, with New Zealand’s 279 all out against India being the lowest score for which a team has been bowled out after two batsmen have made centuries.4 Instances of two West Indians making hundreds in the same innings in South Africa. The venues at which West Indies have achieved this feat are Durban, Cape Town, Centurion and now Port Elizabeth.3 Number of hundreds scored by Brathwaite in 2014. He is only the seventh West Indian opener to make three hundreds in a calendar year, with the others being Gordon Greenidge, Desmond Haynes, Chris Gayle, Conrad Hunte, Lawrence Rowe and Kieran Powell.2 Number of West Indian openers who have made centuries in South Africa. Prior to Brathwaite’s hundred during West Indies’ first innings, Chris Gayle had scored two hundreds during West Indies’ 2003-04 tour to South Africa.

England do not lose too many Test matches these days

Andy Zaltzman25-Feb-2013England do not lose too many Test matches these days. But when they do lose, they lose properly. They go down hard, they go down fast, and they go down in a blaze of statistical ignominy. Since the Flower-Strauss era began, with an almost mathematics-defying innings defeat after collapsing to 51 all out in Jamaica three years ago, England have lost only five more Tests (which, to put their current travails in perspective, is as many as they lost in six weeks in Australia in 2006-07, or in two months against the West Indies whenever they played them in the mid-1980s). They have won 20, drawn 11, and risen to the top of the world rankings. But when they fail, they do not mess about with half-measures. They take a treble measure of neat cricketing vodka, and wash it down with a meths chaser.The ten-wicket Dubai splattering by a resurgent, skilful and determined Pakistan followed in the pattern of the 267-run clouting in Perth in last winter’s Ashes (do not let Australians persuade you that was in fact “last summer’s Ashes”, it was not; it was in the winter; after watching it, I went outside and had to put a woolly hat on; therefore it was winter; the Australians play cricket in winter; that is a fact). The sequence was partially interrupted by a fluctuating four-wicket loss to Pakistan at The Oval, a close game but one that nevertheless featured some historically inept batting by England. Prior to that, England had been clobbered by an innings by South Africa in Johannesburg, and by Australia at Headingley.All of these defeats have featured collapses of 1929 stock market proportions – displays of landmark batting uselessness in an era notable for its unusually persistent and increasingly dominant successes, and also for its dogged, match-saving rearguards. The Jamaica debacle was England’s third-lowest Test score of all time, and only the fifth time that ten Englishmen have failed to reach double figures in a Test innings; at Headingley, England had eight players dismissed for 3 or fewer in a Test innings for the first time in their history, registered 13 dismissals for less than five runs for the second time ever (the first was another 1880s scorebook-burning classic), and were dismissed in under 34 overs in an Ashes Test innings for the second time in 105 years; in Johannesburg, England failed to last 550 balls in their two innings combined for just the third time in over 100 years; at The Oval, all of England’s top six were dismissed for 17 or fewer in the first innings of a Test for the first time since 1887, none of England’s bottom six scored more than 6 runs in the second innings of a Test for only the seventh time in their history, and England lost their last seven wickets for less than 30 runs for the first time in over a decade; in Perth, they failed to last 100 overs in the two innings of a Test in Australia for the first time since 1903-04.Dubai was the latest outbreak of proper, unmitigated batting failure. England slunk to 42 for 4 in the first innings and 35 for 4 in the second ‒ the fifth-worst match performance by England’s top four wickets since the First World War. They then subsided to 94 for 7 and 87 for 7 – the first time since 1988 that England have lost their seventh wicket for less than 100 in both innings of a Test, and the sixth-worst match performance by England’s top seven wickets since the treaty of Versailles heralded 21 years of glorious peace for the world. (Those 21 years, of course, followed four years of war – giving Versailles an 84% success rate, and thus making it a better treaty than Bradman was a batsman. Arguably.)It is a curiosity that England’s rare failures are so cricketingly catastrophic. They have succeeded through collective excellence with bat and ball. They seem to fail with similarly impressive levels of teamwork.They have also tended to respond positively to their isolated failures. They may fall off their horse from time to time, but they get straight back on that horse, feed it a sugar lump, and then Knievel it over a row of buses. Each of their last four defeats has been followed by a victory. And a big victory – by and innings and lots in Melbourne in the Ashes, and at Lord’s against Pakistan, by 181 in Chittagong in the first Test after the Johannesburg blooper, and by 197 at The Oval after seeming to be intent on hurling the Ashes away at Leeds. They also followed the 51 all out schemozzle with 566 for 9 in the next Test.Certainly England were deservedly beaten in Dubai, and they were beaten like a naughty egg white in a 1970s police investigation. On the evidence of the Flower-Strauss years, from that beaten egg white, a deliciously crunchy meringue may grow in the Abu Dhabi Test. However, this admirable Pakistan team, only the second Pakistan Test side to contain (a) seven players over the age of 30 and (b) no one under the age of 25, is unlikely to be quite such compliant assistant dessert chefs as Australia were in Melbourne in 2010-11, or as a very, very different Pakistan team was at Lord’s 18 months ago.ExtrasThe more eagle-eyed Confectionery Stall readers among you may have noticed that I did not entirely predict the narrative and outcome of the first Test. My forecast of a one-nil series victory for England is now looking distinctly unlikely. At best. The two players I highlighted as the Ones to Watch did not adorn the match with scintillating brilliance. Azhar Ali adorned it with one solitary run, and Monty Panesar did not adorn it at all, other than by looking on lugubriously from the pavilion, wondering whether, given his glorious undefeated rearguard in his previous Test, in Cardiff in 2009, he might have been able to stem England’s collapses. In my minimal defence, I did write that England’s obviously imminent victory might not happen if they were “scuppered by the wiles of Saeed Ajmal”. At least seven true words out of 1100. That is by no means the worst performance ever by a British journalist. If I can indeed describe myself as a journalist. Which I certifiably cannot.Some stats: Saeed Ajmal became the first bowler to take ten wickets in a Test against England since Murali (twice) in 2006, and the first Pakistan bowler to do so since Abdul Qadir, who did it three times in 1987. England had lost 16 wickets to specialist spin bowlers in their previous three major series, at an average of 86 runs per wicket. In Dubai, Ajmal and Abdur Rehman took 14 for 186. They bowled very well. England batted very badly. Before the last Test, Ajmal had taken 21 wickets in UAE Tests at an average of 34.I did promise to write about India’s struggles in this blog. I have not done that. Many other people have done that. I may do it next time. Unless the struggles have been miraculously cured. Or become significantly worse.

Stats highlights from Sri Lanka’s remarkable collapse on the final day of the first Test

Madhusudhan Ramakrishnan30-May-2011In an extraordinary finish to a rain-affected game, England pulled off an innings victory when it seemed that a draw was a foregone conclusion. When Sri Lanka started their second innings trailing England by 96 runs, only 51 overs were left in the game. Incredibly, they didn’t even survive half that many, losing six wickets for 19 at one stage to slump to an utterly demoralising defeat. The stats highlights from their innings won’t make pleasant reading for their fans.Sri Lanka faced only 24.4 overs in their second innings and were bowled out for 82 to lose by an innings and 14 runs. It is the lowest number of deliveries faced by Sri Lanka in a completed innings in Tests. Their previous lowest was 24.5 overs against Pakistan in 2006, when they were bowled out 73.The 24.4 overs is also the least number of overs in which England have bowled out any team since they bowled India out for 42 in 17 overs at Lord’s in 1974. It’s also 14th in the overall list of least deliveries faced by a team which has been bowled out in their second innings.Sri Lanka’s total is their fourth-lowest score in Tests and their ninth score below 100. It is also their second-lowest score against England, after the 81 in Colombo in 2001. Their lowest score in Tests is 71 against Pakistan in 1994.The innings defeat is Sri Lanka’s 28th in Tests, their 22nd overseas, and only their second against England. The previous innings defeat against England came in 2002 when they lost by an innings and 111 runs in Birmingham. Sri Lanka’s innings had four ducks, which is one short of their record. Only twice have they had more in an innings: against India in Chandigarh in 1990 and against New Zealand in Wellington in 2006-07.This became only the fourth instance of Sri Lanka losing after scoring 400 or more runs in the first innings. The last such instance came against India at Colombo SSC in 2010 when they lost after scoring 425.For the first time, three English batsmen scored a century in a single innings in a Test against Sri Lanka. Their overall record is four, against Australia at Nottingham in 1938 and against West Indies at Lord’s in 2007.Graeme Swann’s 4 for 16 is his best bowling against Sri Lanka in Tests, surpassing his 3 for 78 in the first innings. It is also the sixth-best performance by an English spinner against Sri Lanka.

A stats lowdown on Trent Bridge, a ground where England have won each of the three times that Michael Vaughan has led the team

Mathew Varghese26-Jul-2007After “getting out of jail” – as Rahul Dravid put it – at Lord’s, a venue at which they have always struggled, India will be relieved that the second Test is in Nottingham. They have played three Tests at Trent Bridge, and while they lost in 1959, they drew their two recent encounters, in 1996 and 2002.India’s batsmen didn’t live up to reputation in the first Test, and the Big Three – Sachin Tendulkar, Dravid and Sourav Ganguly – will be under pressure to perform in the second. All three batsmen have good records at Trent Bridge, with a century apiece.

Ganguly and Tendulkar scored hundreds in the 1996 Test, during their 255-run partnership, the highest for India in England. They have scored more runs at Trent Bridge than any of the current English batsmen, who have all had an unusually quiet time at this venue.

However, given India’s bowling record, the England batsmen could get an opportunity to boost those numbers for the previous two Tests between the two teams in Nottingham were high-scoring contests.

Although India’s batsmen have done well at Trent Bridge, their English counterparts have done better: in 2002, they amassed 617, the third-highest
total at Trent Bridge. Harbhajan Singh conceded 175 runs, the most
in an innings at this venue.England have won three of their last four Tests in Nottingham. Their only defeat was against Sri
Lanka in 2006, when Muttiah Muralitharan took 8 for 70 in the fourth innings, the best
bowling figures in an innings at Trent Bridge.England, though, have won all three Tests under Michael Vaughan’s captaincy at Trent Bridge. Mike Brearley is the only other captain to have a 100% win record at the venue.

The team batting first at Trent Bridge doesn’t have any distinct advantage, having won 17 and lost 14 Tests. However, in the five matches since January 2002, the team batting first has won thrice and lost once, with one Test ending in a draw. The team winning the toss has chosen to bat in each of the six most recent Tests.Overall, the side winning the toss has won 20 and only lost 11 Tests. Since 2000, the toss hasn’t mattered much, the team that has won it has won three and lost two out of seven Tests.Although England’s bowling line-up is inexperienced, Monty Panesar and James Anderson have performed well in the only Test they have played at Trent Bridge. Anil Kumble and Zaheer Khan are the only two Indian bowlers to have played at the venue.

Unlike at most grounds in England, spinners have an excellent record here – since 2000, they have taken 53 wickets at an average of 23. The overcast conditions and the threat of rain, however, could deny Panesar and Kumble the kind of success that other spinners – most notably Shane Warne and Muralitharan – have had here in the past.