Mumbai: If England do not rally in the fourth Test starting here on Thursday, Alastair Cook should resign — not retire, far from it, but resign — and allow Joe Root his first experience of captaincy in the fifth Test in Chennai.
In one of the best England campaigns of all time, Cook rallied his team in India in 2012, and if he can do it again in Mumbai, very well and good: let him continue. But the bright-eyed and bushy-tailed freshness has been replaced by patient resignation; his own batting was the key to the recovery last time, whereas this winter he has averaged 33; and he has dropped the two simplest chances to come England’s way in this series.
All was well until the end of the winter tour of South Africa. Since then, England’s Test team has ceased to grow. This is an era of high-quality all-rounders such as England, by common consent, have never had before, but these talents are not being translated into results. A leader less defensive and formulaic than Cook is required for England to rise to the next level.
Since the South Africa tour, England have won five Tests and lost five (only a statistician could rank them the No. 2 country in the International Cricket Council rankings). Forecasts of clean sweeps last summer were never realistic, owing to the climate and the impact of the wrist-spinner Yasir Shah with his novelty, but 4-2 made a poor return against Sri Lanka and Pakistan; and in all three London Tests, England were, at times, plain limp.
Meanwhile, England’s 50-over and 20-over teams have grown under Eoin Morgan, maximising the talents of Ben Stokes, Moeen Ali, Chris Woakes and the wicketkeeper-batsmen Jonny Bairstow and Jos Buttler.
Captains can take a side so far and no further. England’s situation now is the same as when another left-handed batsman with the same limitless determination as Cook, Allan Border, stopped Australia losing: his successor, Mark Taylor, then turned Australia into the world champions in the mid-1990s.
It is the same as when Nasser Hussain turned England defeats into draws, then Michael Vaughan turned draws into victories. Captaincy is a reflection of the leader’s character, with all the pros and cons that a human being brings to the job. Cook has changed England’s culture: his decency and sense of duty, his kindness and consideration, have tempered the aggressiveness of senior players who made the dressing room daunting for new ones.
Adil Rashid has flowered under Cook, which he might not have done under the old regime, and Haseeb Hameed, too, though he seems not to be bound by normal parameters. And this legacy will endure as long as Cook remains in the team, which he should do for several more years because he will turn no more than 32 on Christmas Day.
More than ever — as the feast of all-rounders is matched by the famine of middle-order Test batsmen — England need the stability up front which flows from Cook scoring centuries in the first innings. In his last 35 innings, he has scored only one, and two in all.
England can have the best of both worlds: Cook’s legacy in the dressing room, and Root’s new style of captaincy on the field. England’s main objective — in the eyes of most supporters, even if the ECB now gives equal weight to white-ball formats — is still to retain the Ashes, and they are likelier to do that if Cook devotes his undivided attention to what he does best than if he remains captain. (In the 2010-11 series, when he was not captain, he scored 766 runs; in 2013-14, when he was, 246.)
The case against Cook as captain consists of the pros which stem from his character. So far as his extreme determination allows, he is non-confrontational — which is ideal when dealing with umpires but not with opponents, because he tends to back off.
Cook does not invade the space of a new batsman at his most vulnerable; he does not talk to him, or stand in his crease to direct his fielders, or make him wait, or bring up a close-catcher into his eye-line: ungentlemanly tactics, perhaps, but they have to be done to give a team their best chance of winning.
Douglas Jardine, Len Hutton, Ray Illingworth, Michael Brearley, Andrew Strauss and Vaughan: all of England’s most successful captains have been prepared to confront opponents, and teammates. The best captains are said to be three overs ahead of the game, and sense an opening. Cook’s rotation of bowlers — four overs here, five overs there — seems pre-programmed before each session, with input from the coaches, and enacted regardless of a change in circumstances.
His prime consideration seems to be exactly that — consideration: he is so considerate of his pace bowlers and their long-term welfare that he does not flog them, even when a breach is there to be forced. But a captain is judged in the short term, on results, and they are not good enough.
It can be argued in Cook’s favour that he was ill-served by England’s selectors, who backed the wrong horses in Alex Hales as an opener, and Nick Compton and James Vince; and ill-served by fate when James Taylor had to retire, because his skills against spin would have cemented one middle-order place this winter.
Cook however, as captain, can exert much influence at home and is a selector — the main one — abroad. He could have brought on Jake Ball instead of persisting with Steve Finn, who has taken 12 wickets at 49 in his seven Tests since South Africa.
England’s strategy in India has been questionable: they have tried to play India at their own game by picking three spinners, none the equal of India’s, instead of playing to the traditional English strength of pace bowling — of which he has six exponents in his squad. Tactically, too, Cook has missed the opportunity of making the most of the new ball, bringing his spinners on even sooner at times than his Indian counterpart Virat Kohli.
When Andy Flower dictated and Cook implemented, it was a much tighter ship than now when Trevor Bayliss advises and Cook has to lead. There is a precedent for England captains to resign after a home series has been lost but before it has been completed, so his successor can get his feet under the table.
Even if it has not happened overseas, the same should apply now if England continue their downward spiral in Mumbai. Root would then be able to debut as captain in the fifth Test of a dead rubber, rather than take over next summer for the first Test against South Africa when the media attention would be an enormous distraction. He needs time to bed in before the Ashes: and one Test here, four against South Africa and three against West Indies at home would allow him to achieve his own style.
— The Telegraph Group Limited, London 2016
