Alastair Cook

He has 7 Test hundreds at the age of 23 and is improving by every passing game.

Tuesday, August 12, 2008

'I have earned the right to play'

Ostensibly we are with Alastair Cook – the quintessential English Test match opener – to talk about the craft of opening the innings, and to go through the technical and mental processes required to execute the most demanding batting skill in the game – seeing off the new ball. It turns out, though, that Cook has a few other things on his mind.

First of all, a few points about where you are in your career. You’re a player whose name was known even before you made your first-class debut, and now you’re 23, with seven Test hundreds to your name. Your stats are spectacularly good for a lad of your age. But where do you see yourself now? How comfortable are you with the stage your career is at?

You’re never comfortable playing for England. The amount of pressure you’re always under as an English team – the media coverage – means you never feel comfortable; it’s always there when you go out and play. Whatever’s happened in my career has been an absolute bonus; I never thought what has happened would happen, and hopefully I can continue it and be good enough to set records, so that when I look back when I’m older – when I stop playing cricket – I’ll be satisfied and move on to do something else. I can move on knowing that my cricket, all those dreams of scoring more hundreds, are realised.

Do you dare to look too far ahead, or is that crazy for a sportsman?

You never know. I mean, who would have said this time last year about the IPL and the way cricket is going, so no, it’s dangerous, it’s just too dangerous, you never know what’s around the corner, whether it’s injury or loss of form. That’s what happens really, when you lose form, when you lose what’s happening with that touch of what you’re doing, you have to try and stir yourself to live in the moment.

How can you explain form? What happens to a batsman, especially an opening bat, when you’re sensing that you’re slightly out of form, how can you possibly explain it?

I think definitely confidence is one of the factors, but also the timing of your movements. You’re either too early or too late, maybe because mentally you’re not in such good form. You’re thinking you’re not in good form.

Do you think form is principally governed by the mental side?

Yeah of course. It’s all governed by that. That’s what form is. It’s governed because you don’t change technique too much; it’s your mind. You might be falling over a little bit or your feet might be moving, but that’s probably due to mentally not thinking quite right. It’s all mental. That’s what’s so stupid about this game, and normally when you’re in bad form you don’t get the run and you don’t get the good luck you need. It spirals, and there’s no way of stopping it. You get so frustrated with it, that it becomes even worse.

Do you find that there are occasions when you’re out there facing up to a quick, when these thoughts are actually going through your mind, or are you pretty good at disassociating yourself?

No. I’d like to think that no one is, that no one can get them out of their head all the time. I mean they’d be ridiculously strong mentally if they can do that. I’m not the only one who has doubts when they’re batting, it’s just trying
to get them under control, I’d like to think.

What is it like opening the batting at the top level and what is it like mentally, in terms of your routine, from this point onwards [the day before a Test match] knowing that tomorrow morning you’re going to be facing a 6ft 6” giant, 6ft 2” tearaway and a bowler who has 300-odd Test wickets, and you’re going to be taking that fi rst ball. What goes through your mind? What is your routine? What is it like in essence opening the batting at this level?

Me and Straussy often laugh about it. It’s one of those positions where you are exposed to the new ball when the ball is at its freshest, but that’s just the nature of the job. It’s probably not for the faint-hearted. I know you need to be as pragmatic as you can be because the new ball does more, but then the rewards when you open the batting when you’re in, and you’ve got 30 or 40 and the bowler’s coming back for their second spell, that’s when you get rewarded.

What’s your mindset during the first hour? Let’s say first hour tomorrow morning and it’s slightly overcast, you maybe lose the toss and you’ve been inserted, what’s your mindset for that first session?

Watch the ball, just watch the ball.

There’s no sweet science?

You’re there to score runs, and you try and get a five-hour hundred don’t you? Goochy always talked about the five-or-six-hour hundred, about trying to get through that new ball. But you’ve still got to score because if you’re 0-0 off 20 overs then that’s not really a solid start, you’re not losing wickets but you’ve still got to look to score. If it’s a bad ball, you look to score, if it’s a good ball you leave it, and if you get through, then you try and cash in.

Is it a challenge to strike that balance?

That’s the art of batting, that’s always been the art of batting. It’s playing your scoring shots and surviving… it’s a risk/reward sort of thing. You don’t get anywhere if you don’t take a little bit of a risk.

Last 15-20 minutes, you’re batting first. Do you have any set routine that you undertake, or is it remaining as relaxed as possible?

Obviously all the work has been done already, you’re nervous but that shows you’re ready, just making sure you’ve thought about everything, that you’re mentally switched on so that you don’t come back 20 minutes later wishing that you’d been switched on, because if you do that, you haven’t given yourself the best chance. If you come back in 20 minutes knowing that you were fully on it, that you’ve given it your best shot, and you got out to a good ball or you made a mistake, then that’s fi ne. But if not, then you get angry when you come back. It’s making sure that you’re ready for 11 o’clock, whether batters have routines involving getting ready at a certain time, it doesn’t matter, as long as at 11 o’clock you can be relaxed. Some people are very chatty, some are quite quiet.

And yourself? What do you prefer?

A little bit of both to be honest, you’ve got to stay relaxed. You know that if you’re so tense and nervous before, you’re not giving yourself the best chance. It’s trying to fi nd that balance. If there is a conversation going I might listen, other times I don’t.

Mark Butcher has said that when he used to open the batting he would take himself away from it for five minutes to a dark corner of the dressing room, some kind of sensory lock down, which relaxed him, and readied himself for the job.

I think if I did that I might think too much. I like a little bit of conversation, just to get me away from it.

You mentioned Graham Gooch, he’s obviously famous for having an infl uence on your career. Is that still the case now, is he still your go-to man?

Yes, if he hasn’t seen me for a while, he just makes sure I’m doing the basics right, and he’s a shoulder to cry on as much as anything. He’s seen it all before and you know even when you don’t score runs he’s been through it all. He knows what it’s like, he’s always there for that bit of reassurance as much as anything of your technique, and as a person. He’s a great man in that respect – he gives you that belief if you’re lacking it. He’s more of a friend, a friend who actually coaches.

What are you working on to take your game forward?

I’m always trying to make sure that in the fi ve-day game I keep the little things right. It’s not a case of changing overnight, it’s just doing the little things better and better, refining things that make you a better player. Experience comes into that and that helps. In the one-day game, being more expansive comes slightly more unnaturally to me, that is more a technique thing. On the Test side I’d like to make one of those big scores that sets up a win.

I suppose that’s the story of your career so far, you’ve got seven Test tons, and yet not one past 130…

Exactly. That’ll be something that hopefully I can redress.

You mention one-day cricket, I used to watch you when you fi rst started at Essex, you never hit the ball in the air ever, clearly you’ve been groomed and you naturally play to keep the ball on the carpet. With big bucks fl ooding into one-day cricket and the landscape of the game changing almost weekly, are you trying to alter your game as well?

You need to have the ability to do it, and it’s a struggle for me naturally, for some reason, hitting over the top. Some people fi nd it a natural golf swing to do it, I can hit a golf ball a long way but for some reason I struggle to hit a cricket ball a long way. Not sure why, I know my bat speed is slower than others. But you’re right, it’s a strange thing coming into the game now, with the money changing week-in week-out; it’s an interesting time to play. If I had children I wouldn’t be teaching them as I was taught…

This is a question I was going to ask you. It seems a shame that you were brought up to play in the classical way, and having pulled it off perfectly, now as you say, if you were bringing any young players through you would encourage them to play in a slightly diff erent way.

I think what it’s doing is making cricket better. I watched Dawid Malan [Middlesex tyro] play yesterday, scoring his hundred. Unbelievable knock. And they’re making 20-year-old players better players. Th ey have to be able to hit over the top, they have to be able to hit it out of the park, otherwise they’re never going to make it.

But do you think if you were five years younger, growing up, and you were encouraged to clear your front leg a bit more and become more expansive, do you think you would have scored seven Test hundreds by the age of 23?

I don’t know, and that’s the problem with cricket that needs to be solved. The problem with Test cricket is that someone like Dhoni’s pulled out of the [current Sri Lanka v India] Test tour, the Sri Lankans are not happy coming over now to play in England in 2009 – which is the best place to play Test cricket – they’re not coming because they’ll upset their IPL deal. Th at is the problem with cricket at the moment. Test cricket could be dead in fi ve years time. It shouldn’t be dead, because if people talk about actual prestige, it’s a Test hundred over a one-day hundred every time. And it’s a Test hundred over a Twenty20 70. But it all changes with the amount of money coming into the game at the moment in only one form – Twenty20. So who’s going to come and watch Test cricket?

Is this discussed in the dressing room? Are the players generally concerned?

I think people are concerned because people like Dhoni will miss a one-day series or a Test series rather than a Twenty20, and the Sri Lankans are not playing the biggest Test tour. That is, to me, the problem with cricket at the moment. Money’s flooding in so quickly that the game can’t handle it.

What’s the answer then?

I know the punters want to see Twenty20 cricket and that seems to be where the money is, but if there’s the opportunity to try and get that money into Test cricket – to use a chunk of the Twenty20 money to make rewards for Test cricket as good – it’s the only way I can see it. Because as I say, when we’re 35 and not playing cricket, you’ve got to go and find a proper way to earn money. The ECB are talking about it, but they don’t know what to do about the rewards of Test cricket. It’s a shame because it shouldn’t happen like that.

Do you think punters should blame English Test cricketers if they do say, ‘well hold on, I’ll play two months in the IPL, and if it means I miss two Tests then so be it.’ Do you think the punters have a right to be annoyed?

I think that’s already happened in Sri Lanka.

In English cricket?

In English cricket it would cause uproar, because of the traditionalists and with Test cricket being held in such high esteem. That is the biggest challenge in English cricket at the moment, and cricket worldwide. On the one hand it’s in a healthy position because of the cash coming in, but money causes problems, and it’s going to cause problems. I hope for the purer side of the game that Test cricket is rewarded, because Test cricket has been around since the 1800s. If you asked most punters on the street who won the Twenty20 IPL or who came third, what the score is, they wouldn’t know. But you can talk about Test cricket, the Boycott and the Botham Test matches. Th at’s the challenge cricket has and personally I hope Test cricket is looked after very well because it needs to be. Whether it will be, I don’t know…

Interesting times. You mentioned a couple of old names there. Are you one of those cricketers who looks to the past and studies the great players?

Obviously, I know the records and the legends of cricket, and one day you’d like to be known like that, and that’s the motivation.

Okay, what’s the innings that sticks in your mind as the perfect innings that you’ve played?

There’s never been such a thing. A double hundred [for Essex] against Australia; any Test hundred – a scrappy hundred against Pakistan at Lord’s – runs are runs, I got my name on the board. A hundred at Perth; hundred at Galle… I don’t know. I don’t really think of a perfect innings.

What do you do diff erently now in your game, to what you did 18 months ago?

Probably not that much. The experience of playing Test cricket gets engrained in you, in a way that you probably wouldn’t realise. Technically not too much, it just evolves. I haven’t changed anything.

What’s it like filling Trescothick’s shoes?

I’m not filling Trescothick’s shoes. Tres is a great player. It’s such a shame what’s happened to him. He’s a great player, he’ll always be remembered for the 2005 Ashes, but I’m not fi lling his shoes. I’ve earned the right to play.

You hear sometimes the view that you and Strauss are too similar. Would you buy that, or is it essentially about the amount of runs?

It’s about runs. Ideally most right-hander/left-hander combinations work better… But I admire anyone who opens the batting, it’s the hardest place to bat. Maybe on the subcontinent, with just a few overs to knock the shine off before the spinners come on – anyone will agree that’s probably the hardest place to bat, so I admire anyone who does it successfully.

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