ENGLAND CRASH AGAIN; COOK HAS TO GO.

Following yet another crushing defeat for the England cricket team in Australia, the future of Alastair Cook is suddenly the topic of debate.

 

Cook was groomed for the captaincy for some time before he was eventually given it, after Andrew Strauss retired, despite him having no real experience at the job. In days gone by, an England captain was almost always either an amateur gentleman, trained in the public school system, or an existing County captain with several years of experience; no longer. In fact, a good few of the recent England captains have had little or no captaincy experience prior to being given the England job and their success has been varied. Sadly, the almost total separation that now exists between County and International cricket means that players are prevented from honing their skills with a county and are whisked off to be ensconced in the England camp, being moulded into whatever the current style of play is while also being protected from failure and disappointment. Many of them hardly ever seem to play and have little chance of ever getting into a real run of form; batsmen play a couple of innings a month and bowlers send down 300 or 400 overs in a year, nowhere near enough to find their true rhythm.   

 

Cook has been a fine batsman though his form has suffered greatly of late, presumably due to the added burden of captaining a dysfunctional team. That he has been unable to encourage his side to improve and that he appears to do little more than stand around with his head in his hands, or stroking his chin, is a sure sign that he is a man out of his depth. Cook has none of the dynamism of some of his more successful predecessors and his team is the poorer for it.

 

When I was a lad, the captain of our junior school team was chosen because he was the best player; while this system may be good enough for school teams, it is hardly the way to pick the best man to lead a national side and so it has proved. Cook is no more a captain than were Kevin Pietersen and Ian Botham; all were appointed because they were good players, with little real thought as to their captaincy abilities. The trouble now is, should Cook be deprived of the job, who would replace him ?

 

First in line would normally be the vice-captain, Matt Prior, but he too has suffered a collapse in form and has even lost his place in the team. Additionally, his captaincy experience is even less than Cook's. Stuart Broad has captained the '20-20' side but it is rare for a bowler to be given the main job; the last pure bowler to be handed the poisoned chalice was Bob Willis , and that was more than 30 years ago. A few all-rounders have had a go but none has been particularly successful since Ray Illingworth, in the early 1970s. Of the others in the current side, Pietersen's already had a go and failed, and his overall attitude is far from what is needed in a captain; Ian Bell has never appeared to be in the running for the job while Carberry, Root, Stokes and Bairstow are newcomers, young and inexperienced. Graeme Swann has gone and Tim Bresnan is on the fringes of the team as is Monty Panesar. Jimmy Anderson is, perhaps, the only one who could, possibly, take the job, but he's another bowler; would he even want it ?

 

For me, Cook is simply not up to it. The only immediate replacement would be Jimmy Anderson, who has matured into a fine bowler, an excellent fielder and, while having no pretensions as a batsman, can often keep one end up for protracted periods of time. Beyond Anderson, the selectors would have to look outside of the current squad, but there are few candidates even there. Several county captains are overseas players while several others are on the wrong side of 30 and with no international experience.

 

Effectively, the system is to blame for the current mess in which the England team finds itself, though others may blame the coach, Andy Flower. In truth, the blame lies with those who designed the system and appointed Flower but there is little chance that they will see it this way. Instead, they'll sack Flower and Cook and appoint another inappropriate captain. "Plus ça change, plus c'est la même chose".