Until he dragged into his stumps for 96 the England captain had been virtually ever-present during the Test and it his virtues that the team will need in bucket loads to stave off defeat
George Dobell at Lord's18-Jul-2015Whatever waits the other side of a nuclear holocaust – famine, pestilence and an uncontrolled return of the heavy roller in county cricket to name but three catastrophes – it seems safe to assume that, as the first survivors peep from behind their curtains and wonder whether Starbucks remains unscathed, Alastair Cook will be scratching his mark and preparing to take strike against the four horsemen of the apocalypse.Barring a miracle, Australia will draw level in this Investec Ashes series at some stage in the next 48 hours. But the game will have to be pulled – figuratively, at least – from Cook’s cold, dead hands before that result can be achieved. Back to something approaching his best with the bat, he has the stamina – mentally and physically – the technique and the temperament to keep out the rain. He just requires a bit more support.Cook has shown us before that he possesses remarkable mental strength. It is not just that he has, despite a limited range of stroke, complied 27 Test centuries and 9,000 Test runs. It is that he has shown the determination to absorb the criticism, the disappointment and the abuse that comes with a prolonged spell of grim form and leading a side through failures – Test and ODI – and on to transition without ever accepting defeat and without ever choosing to move back into the ranks. He is a remarkably stubborn man. As a batsman, at least, it is one of his best qualities.Cook must have been, on some level, weary before he began his innings. He had been in the field for just over five sessions when Australia declared. He then had to watch as two of his top-order colleagues wafted at wide deliveries and another played across a straight one as if he had really encountered swing before.But if disappointment is wearying, Cook did not let it show. Instead, he nudged off his hip, clipped off his legs and pulled or cut when the opportunity arose and left or defended the rest of the time. It is not especially pretty or exciting but, in a team containing several strokemakers, it is a valuable role. He has, to date, spent all but 12 overs of this match – barring a few comfort breaks – on the pitch.To some extent, this match situation played to Cook’s strengths. Whereas at Cardiff he appeared to feel the need to demonstrate personal aggression as an example to his team-mates, here – with his side one down and more than 560 in arrears before he faced a ball – the situation demanded he apply his more familiar attributes: patience, defiance and discipline.There has been much talk about England’s new aggression in recent times. And it is true that this team, up to a point, plays with more freedom than some of their predecessors.But Cook must remain unspoilt by progress. While Moeen Ali and Jos Buttler and Ben Stokes and Joe Root are free to play their strokes, he must remain unashamedly, reassuringly, defiantly old-fashioned. While others have a license to thrill, he has a license to bore. He is, like pensions, damp-proofing and dental insurance, important but unexciting.For a while at Lord’s, old and new England met in perfect harmony. While Stokes, bristling with aggression, took on the bowlers, Cook rotated the strike and wore them down. While Stokes upper-cut Mitchell Johnson for four and thumped Nathan Lyon for six, Cook left outside off stump with certainty and forced each of the bowlers into more spells.England’s problem is that the hole they found themselves in after the first two days was simply too deep. Very rarely can a side clamber back into a match from a position where the opposition are 337 for 1 at the end of the first day or when they are 30 for 4 within 11 overs of their own first innings. Cook and Stokes performed valiantly, but they were left too much to do by the failure of their colleagues.This has been, in many ways, a bitterly disappointing game for Cook. He has seen his top-order swept aside, his seamers fail to maintain the full length that Australia perfected and his catchers slip to pre-Cardiff standards. The sight of him down on one knee, head bowed, disappointment etched into every fibre of his being after he was drawn into driving at one he could have left and edging on to his stumps, was to see something close to despair.It was not that he knew that he remained without an Ashes century at home and without one anywhere since Sydney in early 2011. It was that he knew that, falling just 10 deliveries before the new ball was available, ended England’s chances of batting into a fourth day. After 227 successive overs on the field, he probably deserved rather better.This was the template England must follow, though. This is the future. New England cannot just be about thrashing boundaries; it has to be about earning the right to take control of games. It must be about old and new working together.Cook’s work is not done, though. Some time on Sunday, Australia will declare and his real challenge will begin – again. If England are to have any chance to escaping from this mess, he will require a great deal more support from his colleagues.
