The King Is Dead! Long Live The King!

 

The King Is Dead! Long Live The King!

February 6^th 2017

When the sages started to think that the lack of a puff of white smoke from the chimney of the family farm in Essex meant that Alistair Cook planned to hold on to the captaincy and with the England Lions about to leave for Sri Lanka, suddenly word came that the king has abdicated.

Cook’s position was not quite as bad as when he was forced out of the ODI captaincy – a decision that, to this day, he feels was unjustified – but it was going in that direction. When England lost 5-0 in Australia, the opprobrium was directed at others. When England slumped against first Sri Lanka and then India, the concern was about his batting form. Enough series wins came to paint over the cracks of some bad defeats – Ashes success against Australia, a win in South Africa, turning around the series at home to India – but far too many series wins were diminished or slipped away by losing the final Test of a series and series that could have been shared became heavy defeats in the same way. Cook’s win percentage has dropped steadily since he took over the captaincy with, now, a record total for an England captain of 22 defeats. This has become one of the riddles of the Cook captaincy: wins in India, in South Africa and two Ashes wins in England – one of them quite unexpected – have to be balanced against a 5-0 defeat in Australia, 4-0 in India, 2-0 in the UAE, a first ever home series defeat to Sri Lanka and a first ever Test defeat to Bangladesh. Cook has presided over some amazing highs and some pretty desperate lows.

The players speak of his decency. He makes new members of the team feel welcome. He has a strong sense of duty. Cook knew though that if he led the side out in the 1^st Test against South Africa at Lord’s on July 6^th, the deal would not conclude until the end of the 5^th Test at Sydney on January 8^th. In between times, twelve Tests, with a tour to New Zealand following close behind. Resignation half way through the summer, even if 3-0 down to South Africa, would not be an option.

Alistair Cook evidently let the wounds of India heal, enjoyed his time on the farm with wife, Alice and then sat down with her and asked if he had the physical strength to handle twelve Tests, including two very difficult series, before he would have a second chance to give up the captaincy without letting his team down, by quitting in the middle of the schedule of almost back-to-back series. Unlike in 2014, when Alice changed his mind about resigning, this time she evidently felt that he had had enough and that the tank was empty.

The timing of the abdication may be significant. It is well known that the selectors are nervous about the prospect of asking Joe Root to play in all three formats and captain the Test side. There is also the not inconsiderable diplomatic issue of the new captain of the Test side playing under a different captain (Eoin Morgan or Jos Buttler) in ODIs and T20s: that happened back in 2003 when Nasser Hussain gave up the ODI captaincy (no T20s in those days) to Michael Vaughan and, within months, had lost the Test captaincy to him too.

With no Tests to play until mid-July, there is, at least in theory, no hurry to appoint a captain, save in the sense of giving him several months to grow into the role. However, the new season is starting and we are told that a new captain will be appointed within two weeks. In other words, by February 20^th.

On February 12^th, the England Lions start a tour to Sri Lanka with two, unofficial Tests, followed by five, unofficial ODIs. Intercalated between the ODIs in Sri Lanka are full ODIs of the England side in the Caribbean. Junior and senior side return and, within two weeks, the official curtain-raiser of the 2017 County season starts in Dubai, with the North v South matches and then the MCC v Champion county and, on March 28^th, a full round of university matches start in England.

Joe Root will go to the Caribbean, very probably as the new England Test captain. However, the next time that Root steps onto a cricket field, half way around the world, Keaton Jennings will already be into his fifth match as England Lions captain, passing Joe Root’s lifetime captaincy experience of just four matches. At the same time, Durham have given him the captaincy for 50-over cricket (not before some arm-twisting from the ECB) and Jennings will also lead out the North against the South in Dubai. If Joe Root’s coronation is a done deal, why so much interest in cramming as much captaincy experience into Keaton Jennings in such a short time?

Knowing that the selectors really wanted to give Joe Root until summer 2018 before increasing his burden still further, there are a few pundits who do wonder if the selectors might come up with a really left-field pick and give the Test captaincy to a player who has had just two Tests and who may have to drop down to #3 – coincidentally, allowing Joe Root to move back to have favoured #4 slot – if he is even to continue in the side. There is a school of thought that the best captain in Australia might be the one who will make Australia least comfortable. Joe Root, apart from being England’s key player (any Australian worth his salt will think “decapitation” if they can make his tour miserable), has previous with Australia in the sense of an incident with David Warner in a Birmingham bar and would be still new to the job. The Australians will undoubtedly have a plan for him to destabilise him. Would a former South African U19 captain who has declared for England and who is not yet established in the side, bother them more and, in passing, deflect Australian attention from Root? It is an interesting question.