Alastair Cook always gave the impression he was able to concentrate more easily than any of his peers. Once set he was, like most of the great batsmen, a predictable run-making machine. He did not sweat physically or metaphorically. He just got on with the job and was a wonderfully reassuring presence but his capacity to remain intensely focused yet relaxed at the crease has become elusive over the past year.
Perhaps the worst feeling for a batsman is to be playing well and not scoring. The mind starts to wander and then asks: “What happens now if I start playing badly?” This is the kind of territory Cook has been inhabiting recently.
From late August 2017 Cook has played 27 Test innings and passed 50 only twice, once spectacularly at Melbourne when he finished on 244 not out and there was a 70 at Leeds against Pakistan in May. Yet for most of that time he seemed to be playing quite well. Then he would get out. This was at odds with the bulk of his England career.
Initially his failures might have been seen as a nasty coincidence. Perhaps he was attracting a sequence of superb deliveries; his dismissals against Ravi Ashwin at Edgbaston a month ago may have encouraged such a thesis. But in the rest of the series against India after laying foundations at the start of every innings there has been one nick too many. The “nasty coincidence” theory could not be sustained. In his farewell statement Cook appropriately used the analogy his mentor, Graham Gooch, coined. “There is nothing left in the tank”.
He will depart as England’s most capped Test cricketer - the match at the Oval will be his 161st - who has scored around 2,500 more Test runs than any other Englishman (he would have to muster 146 in his final Test for that to be precisely the case and Sod’s Law may dictate everything suddenly clicks again). It is just possible Jimmy Anderson, 18 Tests behind, could overtake his number of appearances. In his 12 years as a Test player he has never been dropped and has missed only one game, through sickness in Mumbai in 2006.
His departure will be predictably dignified; he has shunned the glitz of the celebrity cricketer; he has never been a hindrance to match referees, umpires or his captains before or after his tenure in charge of England, which lasted longer than anyone else in terms of matches (59). Do not mistake his decorous behaviour for softness. Cook may have retained the smile of a choirboy over the years but he outlasted previous batsmen and captains because he was so tough and, on occasions, obstinate and capable of tunnel vision.
Most Test runs for England
12,254 Alastair Cook (average 44.88)
8,900 Graham Gooch (42.58)
8,463 Alec Stewart (39.54)
8,231 David Gower (44.25)
8,181 Kevin Pietersen (47.28)
Most balls faced in Test cricket since Cook’s debut in March 2006
26,086 Alastair Cook (England)
17,806 Hashim Amla (South Africa)
15,554 Kumar Sangakkara (Sri Lanka)
14,165 Ian Bell (England)
13,987 AB de Villiers (South Africa)
Most hundreds for England
32 Alastair Cook
23 Kevin Pietersen
22 Ian Bell, Geoffrey Boycott, Colin Cowdrey, Wally Hammond
Most ‘Daddy’ hundreds for England (150+)
11 Alastair Cook
10 Wally Hammond, Len Hutton, Kevin Pietersen
8 Dennis Amiss, Graham Gooch, David Gower
Most Test runs as an opener
11,627 Alastair Cook (England)
9,607 Sunil Gavaskar (India)
9,030 Graeme Smith (South Africa/World XI)
8,625 Matthew Hayden (Australia)
8,207 Virender Sehwag (India/World XI)
NB Cook scored 627 Test runs batting at No3 or No7
Most Tests for England
160 Alastair Cook
142 Jimmy Anderson
133 Alec Stewart
122 Stuart Broad
118 Ian Bell, Graham Gooch
Most consecutive Tests
158 Alastair Cook (England, 2006-18)
153 Allan Border (Australia, 1979-94)
107 Mark Waugh (Australia, 1993-2002)
106 Sunil Gavaskar (India, 1975-87)
101 Brendon McCullum (New Zealand, 2004-16)
Most Test runs in Asia by a non-Asian batsman
2,710 Alastair Cook (England, average 53.13)
2,058 Jacques Kallis (South Africa, 55.62)
1,889 Ricky Ponting (Australia, 41.97)
1,859 Hashim Amla (South Africa, 47.66)
1,850 Shivnarine Chanderpaul (West Indies, 48.68)
General
294 Highest Test score, against India in 2011.
766 Runs scored in the 2010-11 Ashes, when England won in Australia for the first time in 24 years.
173 Catches taken in Test cricket, the most by an England outfielder.
59 Tests as captain, another England record.
562 Runs scored in four Tests against India in 2012-13, his first series as full-time captain. England won a series in India for the first time in 28 years.
15 Opening partners in his career: Andrew Strauss, Michael Vaughan, Michael Carberry, Jonathan Trott, Kevin Pietersen, Nick Compton, Joe Root, Sam Robson, Adam Lyth, Moeen Ali, Alex Hales, Ben Duckett, Haseeb Hameed, Keaton Jennings, Mark Stoneman.
1 Test wicket: Ishant Sharma at Trent Bridge in 2014.
46.57 Cook’s average as captain. When he was in the ranks he averaged 43.84.
46.97 Cook’s career strike rate per 100 balls – faster than, among others, Graham Thorpe, Robin Smith, Jacques Kallis, Faf du Plessis and Nasser Hussain.
18.62 Cook’s average in 2018, easily his lowest in a calendar year.
That soon became evident from his batting at the start of his Test career when he willed himself to a debut century in Nagpur in 2006 having spent three days travelling from the Caribbean as an emergency replacement. He scored 164 runs in that match and he was dismissed only once when the word was that he was supposed to be frail against spin. Anil Kumble and Harbhajan Singh failed to spot any obvious weaknesses.
He has hit 32 Test centuries. In nearly all of them he batted in the same way, so quite a few fade from memory. That is how so many great players proceed. They establish a method that works and stick to it, more or less regardless of the situation. So aside from his debut his most memorable knocks stem from the context of the game: the double century in Brisbane in November 2010; the three hundreds in consecutive games in India in 2012, the first in defeat in Ahmedabad to show his teammates what was possible, the second alongside Kevin Pietersen in Mumbai to set up a famous victory, the third to consolidate England’s revival in Kolkata.
That trip to India was Cook’s first as England’s official captain – he had deputised for Andrew Strauss in Bangladesh in 2010. With the captaincy came an unwelcome opportunity to display his toughness again. He inherited the Pietersen situation after the resignation of Strauss. Once your correspondent was about to praise him for the pragmatic foresight of restoring Pietersen to the side for that tour to India in 2012 when he said he would not have picked him if it had been solely his decision, which might be an example of a principled stand to some, tunnel vision to others.
In 2014 the Pietersen issue rumbled on as England faltered against Sri Lanka and India under Cook’s captaincy. He was subjected to unprecedented vitriol on social media. As ever he bore this in a dignified manner and he toughed it out. It may have helped that he has always had the wisdom not to participate in social media so he must have avoided some of the barbs. At Southampton that summer he hit 95, an important return to form in such a stormy season, and he received a standing ovation fit for a triple centurion. There has always been a silent majority out there who admire his qualities and on that day they let him know it. They will be doing the same at the Oval this week.
At the end of his statement Cook says, “I can’t wait to get fully involved with Essex in their 2019 season”, which prompted two thoughts: Cook has a simple love of the game and his county rather like Marcus Trescothick. Then came the hypothetical: next summer it is 2-2 in the Ashes; Cook averages 80 for Essex; there is a batting crisis at the top of England’s order. Would he answer the call? At a guess, no. Once Cook’s mind is made up it takes something seismic to change it.
