Alistair Cook Under Pressure Again

 

 

Cricket 2014

 

India’s Chance to Re-open the England Crisis

 

August 30^th 2014

 

After the Lords Test it was hard to see where England could go. Things are strikingly similar here. The series is 1-0 after an indecisive first match and a crushing Indian win in conditions that should have suited England in the second. The captain is again under pressure and the angry reaction to Graeme Swann’s comments is so similar to the Alistair Cook of Lords, earlier in the summer. Alistair Cook us not a happy bunny and, as it is rabbit-hunting season in Spain, he would be well-advised to avoid a trip to the Costa del Sol: with his luck a hunter would be liable to add Cook to his bag.

In the captain’s last 14 innings over 10 games an alarming pattern has been established. He has 4x50, but eight times has reached double figures but not passed 28. Despite the heroics at Southampton, the mind and the batting are not quite right. Alistair Cook is getting himself in, but then getting out when the hard work has been largely completed.

There is still time for a change of tack with the ODI side, but now that England have showed their hand and stated clearly that Alistair Cook will continue as ODI captain – it would have been so easy to “rest” him for this series after a tough summer and completely defensible. Unfortunately, Middlesex’s miserable limited-overs and, after a promising start, even in the County Championship, has done nothing for Eoin Morgan’s ambitions – if he cannot turn Middlesex’s season around, he is hardly likely to be England’s saviour.

There is pressure for change today. Chris Jordan, despite a fine tour of Australia, needs to be sent back to Sussex for the Championship run-in. Ben Stokes is not making good on his promise and also needs more middle time getting back the bite that he showed in Australia. For England, Steve Finn and Harry Gurney coming in would be obvious changes. Playing Finn though would be a risk: his two games for the Lions against New Zealand A and Sri Lanka A brought him five wickets but both games he went for at least 65 runs in doing it. England’s nightmare scenario is that Steve Finn comes back and gets so roughly treated that he goes back to square one in his recovery. However, maybe it is time to bite the bullet in some relatively low-key games.

For India, things look more rosy. Their batsmen showed the spirit in pyjamas that they rarely showed in whites and gritted through some difficult overs in the morning to set a healthy total that was well beyond anything that they had set in the last five innings of the Test series. More of the same at Trent Bridge and the worst result that they will get from the series is to share it however, if England go 2-0 down, it is hard to imagine that it will not finish 4-0 to India.