With England losing their first Test series of the summer against Sri Lanka, knives are already out for the England captain Alastair Cook, with two friends leading the way – Shane Warne and Kevin Pietersen. While there is still a plenty of support for Cook from England’s cricket establishment, Pietersen and Warne can afford to speak their mind as they are both outside the system.
Warne is hated by the English establishment for being an “Aussie Cheerleader’, with Cook openly coming out against the former Australian great, pointing out that Warne had always been critical of him, almost accusing him of a nefarious agenda of wanting to destroy English cricket. Cricket journalists known to be close to Cook have also questioned Warne’s intentions.
But the loss against Sri Lanka at Headingley has only weakened Alastair Cook further and has left his many defenders running for cover. Shane Warne has been validated, and has come out even stronger against Cook in his regular column at Telegraph, going as far as to say that Cook’s captaincy was the worst that he had ever seen in all his years of watching and playing cricket.
Calling the England captain, Alastair “Cooked” Cook, Warne has been highly critical, saying that Cook was yet to learn from the disastrous Ashes loss to Australia, and basically dismissed him as a lost case, saying that Cook “simply does not get it”. Cook’s tactics as a captain, such as not going on an all out attack against Sri Lanka’s Angelo Mathews, allowing him to play a match winning innings, completely mismanaging his bowling resources, has come under severe criticism from Warne. Warne said there was little England could do under Cook, and that it was disastrous for England to have Cook as their captain for any longer.
If getting a severe whipping from his old Australian nemesis wasn’t bad enough, Cook has had to face the prospect of his former England teammate, Kevin Pietersen, getting on his case. Pietersen has accused the England team of playing with great fear, of being so scared of losing that this left them completely incapable of winning. Pietersen claimed that the English cricket establishment had been fooling the public and warned them that the public wouldn’t be fooled for much longer with their negativity. Pietersen questioned several of Cook’s decisions, including batting last on a Headingley pitch, which is known to be a spinner’s track, knowing very well that the Sri Lankan side had one of the best spinners in the world in Rangana Herath.
Going by the reaction of England’s cricket watching public, it seems that the majority have supported Warne and Pietersen in their tirade against Cook. Many have thanked the duo for giving a voice to a growing public opinion in England that there is something seriously wrong with the national cricket team. The loss against Sri Lanka has meant that very few can now dare to question the motives of Cook’s critics. While Pietersen and Warne have led the charge, the voices against not just Cook, but against the entire English cricket establishment, represented by Giles Clarke, have only become stronger and even more intense over the past few months.
The one thing that always saved Alastair Cook in the past was his amazingly consistent performance as a batsman. Hardly a series went by without Cook scoring a hundred. Cook’s batting was always reliable, adding a great solidity to the English batting, right at the top, which was to the advantage of more flamboyant batsmen such as Ian Bell and Kevin Pietersen. But Cook’s batting form has deserted him for quite a while now, and he hasn’t made a hundred in the last two years of playing Test cricket. Cook was found to be particularly susceptible to the serious pace of Mitchell Johnson in the last Ashes series, and his performance in Australia was forgettable to say the least.
This only means that the forthcoming series against India has the potential of destroying a plenty of careers in English cricket, with Cook’s head pretty much on the chopping block. But Cook has always enjoyed batting against the Indian bowlers and a couple of big hundreds from him and a series win may well be enough to save his position. Even so, questions will be continued to be asked about his suitability to lead the England side in the next summer’s all important Ashes against a rejuvenated Australia with the menacing Mitchell Johnson as their fast bowling spearhead.
