India vs England 2016: Alastair Cook must lead from the front and rediscover resolve to bounce back

Alastair Cook was looking composed enough at Mumbai. He was timing the ball well and used his feet to get into the pitch of the ball while defended the good ones on a track which offered turn and bounce pretty early. He was providing the perfect foil to debutant Keaton Jenning’s fluency and for a while, it seemed, Cook had finally found back his lost rhythm.

With the opening partnership one-run shy of a hundred, Cook attempted a cross-batted shot against Ravindra Jadeja and was stumped to frustrate the English dressing rooms and his critics. Yet again, Cook has failed to convert good starts into big hundreds and day by day, the pressure upon him is mounting tremendously.   

When England arrived in India four years ago, they were disturbed by the events on and off the field. The Kevin Pietersen saga led to a divided house while losing the home series against Graeme Smith’s South Africa shattered the confidence of the team to a great extent. Meanwhile, the retirement of Andrew Strauss, under whom England brought home the Ashes from Australia after 24 years, created a vacuum which triggered a headache among the English hierarchy.

It was never going to be an easy task to find the worthy replacement of Strauss and very few expected Cook to turn things around very soon.

The 2012 Indian series

England’s next assignment was a tough one – the Indian tour. Playing a Test series in India is one of the most challenging tasks for the touring sides. The Indian team was a well-balanced side. The batting was oozing with talent and experience while the bowling attack boasted with the likes of Zaheer Khan, Harbhajan Singh and new emerging talents – Ravi Ashwin and Pragyan Ojha.

England were not considered to put even a fight on the rank-turners against such an excellent team.

But to the astonishment of all, England triumphed under Cook, who transformed into a lighthouse for his men throughout the series. They started with a defeat in Ahmedabad, but Cook’s brilliant knock in the second innings of the first Test helped to boost the confidence among his men and made them believe, batting is not an impossible task on such turning tracks.

The English team regrouped under Cook in the following Test matches. At Mumbai and Kolkata, England outclassed India to win the Test series and a lot of credit went to Cook, whose absolute purple patch with the bat inspired others to dish out match-winning performances.  

Moreover, Cook’s outstanding form with the bat helped England to rediscover resolve which is always an important ingredient to conquer adversity.

Cook’s current form adding to the English’s woes

Sadly, during the ongoing Indian tour, Cook is just the shadow of the past. He started off well in Rajkot and, it seemed, he had buried the ghost of Mirpur. But in the following two Test matches, he failed miserably. Being the captain and most experienced campaigner of his team, it was very important for Cook to marshall the batting order whose middle-order is fragile and score enough runs consistently to keep the spirit of the team going. 

Cook’s lean patch reflected on his captaincy as well. In the critical last session at Mohali on day 1,  a defensive captaincy let India to recover from a hiccup.  

In my opinion, Cook should not have taken the new ball, but persisted with the older one as scoring runs were pretty tough with the old ball. Moreover, as the English pacers are well-equipped to make the old move late and pitch it on those areas where the bounce is low, taking the new ball didn’t seem to me a wise decision.

The Indian tail wagged leaving Cook and his men frustrated.

Meek tactics by Cook doesn’t help the English cause

While in the second Test at Vizag, how justified it was to engage Zafar Ansari during the crucial passage of play when Cheteshwar Pujara and Virat Kohli were not yet set at the crease and India were two down pretty early. Ansari came into bowl and released the pressure and gain the advantage. Pujara and Kohli stitched a big partnership which dented England’s good efforts in the early part of the game. Cook should have used the new ball more rather than bringing on the spinners early as because, pace bowlers are England’s main strength and when the team doesn’t have quality spinners like Graeme Swann and Monty Panesar, how justified is it to play three spinners and rely more on them remains a moot question.

 Again, Cook dropped two simplest of chances to come England’s way this series.       

At the other end, Cook’s counterpart, Virat Kohli’s sublime form with the bat and aggressive intent have proved worthy enough for India. Virat’s ability to motor the innings has been helping India to surpass the critical periods and thus, never let the confidence of his team to get dented, while his faith in his strike bowlers and rotating his options with merit, proved instrumental to come back into the game whenever it was required. Especially, his attacking mindset is so contagious that his pace bowlers didn’t shy away from bowling the short balls on spinning tracks to surprise the opposition batsmen.  

That’s how a captain’s good form and aggressive intent can galvanize a unit.      

Right now, England are 2-0 down. A herculian effort will be needed to script a memorable comeback. And to essay a great turnaround, Cook must score runs and change his approach while leading his men on the field.

He must not forget, it was his brilliant form led to a great recovery four years back and he has a bunch of talented players under his belt who are needed to be utilized with a lot more aggressive and positive intent to force a productive outcome.

Note: This article has been published at Sportskeeda on 08/12/2016 India vs England 2016: Alastair Cook must lead from the front and rediscover resolve to bounce back

Thank You

Faisal Caesar