Sir Alastair Cook, speaking exclusively to TNT Sports, says there are “hard yards” ahead for England’s Test cricketers if they want to win the “big moments in big series”.
England succumbed to an ultimately heavy 4-1 away series loss against India that culminated last week, despite having triumphed in the first Test in Hyderabad.
In the aftermath of the fifth and final Test in Dharamsala that England lost by an innings and 64 runs, skipper Ben Stokes said his team had been “outplayed”, while coach Brendon McCullum said they had been “exposed”, as India – despite some brilliant moments from the tourists – showed their superiority in home conditions as the series progressed.
England are now in the strange position of not having a theoretically ‘big’ Test series until October when they travel to Pakistan, with this summer’s two home series being played against first West Indies and then Sri Lanka, ranked seventh and eighth in the Test rankings respectively.
Cook gave his thoughts on what the India series said about England’s much-discussed ‘Bazball’ philosophy, and how they can go forward from here.
“They’ve tried to push boundaries to try and get this group of players playing to the best of their ability,” Cook said. “That’s what Bazball is about, to have the freedom to go and play your style, and try and have a positive impact on the game.
“It’s freed up a number of players and their records have improved. The litmus test in terms of batting in India is that there are a few basics that you can’t not have, actually.
“Even if you go back to Ollie Pope’s extraordinary [first Test] innings of 196 [in Hyderabad]; yes he was positive, yes he had great intent, but he still played the situation very well. He mixed his defence and attack, he took the right options.
“Ben Duckett is a great example of it, brilliant hundred [in the third Test in Rajkot], he’s been superb actually in this series in terms of the starts he’s got, but the bottom line is that you do need to be able to have the option of defending against world-class spinners.
“You saw he really did struggle to line up [Ravichandran] Ashwin towards the end of that series. You get worked out, you get worked out without a solid defence.
“I would like these players – they’re a great side to watch, it’s been thoroughly entertaining cricket – but you want these players to kick on and be the best they can be.
“There is going to be hard yards for all of them, because you have to. I think James Anderson shows those serious hard yards of constantly trying to improve. He’s lengthened his run-up, or he’s run in a bit faster trying to be better. I hope the same for a player like Duckett, that he looks at this and goes ‘really now I’ve got to improve my defence a bit more’. Ollie Pope, ‘how do I start my innings better’.
“All these kinds of things which this series has thrown up, I hope they don’t – I’m sure they won’t – go ‘oh it’s India away, no one wins there’. Well it’s true, not many sides do win there. However, you can always improve your game.
“That’s what this side needs to go forward. If they want to win the big moments in big series, that’s what has I suppose been lacking in this series, they haven’t won a big series yet. They’ve got a couple more in a year or two’s time, they’ve got Ashes away [in 2025/26], they’ve got a chance to do that, they’ve got to build towards that you would say.”
Cook added: “You look at this group of batsmen, you’ve got [Zak] Crawley averaging 30 [32.63], Pope averaging 30 [34.04], [Jonny] Bairstow averaging mid-30s [36.39] – that’s where they’re at.
“To become great sides who win big series, you want them to be averaging 40-odd, 50 over a period of time, to help the side win.
“I just want to see this side evolve again, as every side needs to, under this leadership and their brand of cricket that they want to play.”
It’s not just England’s Test cricketers who have had a difficult winter, with the ODI World Cup seeing Jos Buttler’s side go out in the group stages, and then losing both the ensuing T20 and ODI series in the West Indies.
And Cook sees reversing that trend as key ahead of the upcoming English summer.
“England cricket need to get back to winning ways,” Cook said. “They’ve had a poor winter. I don’t think anyone really expected them to win this [India] series, if you had to put your mortgage on it at the start of it.
“They gave a decent account of themselves at certain times in the series and made it good, competitive cricket. But India are the better side in these conditions, they’re better players.
“However you’ve got to look – they lost the T20 series in the West Indies, they had a poor [ODI] World Cup as well.
“So English cricket needs to get back to winning ways. They need to wrest a bit more momentum back to English cricket and go again.”
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