Under-fire Cook determined to lead England out of slump

David Clough 06:46 22/07/2014
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  • Poor returns: Alastair Cook’s average over the last 10 Tests has been 22.10

    Alastair Cook is experiencing the toughest moments of his profes­sional career, by his own admission, but remains determined to lead England out of their losing run.

    The manner of England’s 95-run defeat to India was especially dis­piriting in the second Test at Lord’s, after a century stand between Joe Root (66) and Moeen Ali began to hint at a famously unlikely win – only for Ishant Sharma to induce a hapless collapse from 173 for four to 223 all out.

    Sharma bounced out a succes­sion of batsmen on the way to a career-best seven for 74, as English hopes evaporated and a 1-0 lead was India’s by mid-afternoon.

    Cook continued his conspicu­ously long run of poor scores with two more failures at the top of the order – and has now overseen seven defeats in England’s last nine Tests.

    That sorry sequence includes last winter’s Ashes whitewash, of course – a shocking and embarrassing dip in fortunes, which brought an over­haul of management hierarchy but the retention of Cook as captain to try to forge a new era alongside returning coach Peter Moores.

    They have begun, however, with defeats in all three formats against Sri Lanka and a latest setback which puts them on the back foot already in this five-match series. 

    Many high-profile observers were insisting, even before Eng­land lost here, that Cook must be relieved of his duties. But he still wants to try to put things right, starting – in this hectic and drain­ing summer – in the third Test at Southampton next weekend.

    “I haven’t had any tougher times in my career than at the moment,” said Cook. “It gets harder and hard­er the longer it goes on. But I don’t think walking away from it would be the way to go.

    “Until somebody taps you on the shoulder and says ‘we don’t want you to be captain’, or ‘we think there is a better man’, or my posi­tion does become untenable, I want to be carrying on.”

    Cook believes it would simply be wrong to surrender mid-series.

    “If I’m not scoring runs by the end of the series, and we’re los­ing more games… then I’m clearly maybe not the man,” he added. “But I’ve been speaking to Mooresy over the last couple of days, and we still think we can turn this round.”

    Matt Prior last night stood down as England wicketkeeper for the remainder of the series, citing an ongoing Achilles problem.

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