England captain Alastair Cook back as master of all he surveys

On England’s wretched tour of Australia two years ago their captain seemed to be a broken man. Alastair Cook could not buy a run. Victory and the team that he was charged with leading had become strangers.

Following another loss in a one-day international in Sydney, their eighth in succession including the whitewash in the Test series, he sensed the end was nigh. Cook said as much in the post-match press conference, when you felt that one more indecorously posed question about his position might have tipped him over the edge. He might actually have said then: “That’s it, I’ve had enough.”

Somehow, he resisted but he came close enough and the catch in his voice and the glazed expression of the eyes told their own stories.

A week later, England at last won a match and he revised his opinion. But nothing had inherently changed. Cook was still a man on borrowed time. He might have decided he still wanted the job but four or five months later virtually no one else wanted him to have it.

For the entire early part of that 2014 season, Cook was being advised to go or the selectors were being urged to sack him. If not for the team’s good, then for Cook’s own well-being. It seemed not to matter who the replacement might be. Neither Cook nor the selectors budged. But defeats at Headingley against Sri Lanka and at Lord’s against India and his continuing lack of runs multiplied the intensity of the scrutiny. Seasoned observers could not recall any player or captain being subjected to such relentless examination and advice. He had to go.

He stayed. And yesterday at Lord’s where England, Team England that is, had a farewell lunch before leaving for their flight to South Africa, it was next to impossible to reconcile that incessantly calamitous period with the man who was now to all intents and purposes lord of all he surveyed.

Cook’s position may not quite be untouchable but no one is suggesting he should depart anytime soon. He has led England in 41 Tests and injury and desire permitting (he has been immensely fortunate so far in avoiding the former, appears to have bottomless reserves of the latter) he should overtake Mike Atherton’s record of 54 matches next winter in India.

On Christmas Day he will be 31 and in theory therefore he has another six or seven years of profitable batting years ahead of him. It is impossible to imagine that he would remain as captain for that long since all teams need reinvigoration from time to time, as the England women’s team under the longtime leadership of Charlotte Edwards is demonstrating.

But this team, remodelled as it has been in the last year, see him unquestioningly as their leader. He has their respect and perhaps their devotion. Last week his status was enhanced when for the second time he was nominated as captain of the ICC’s Test team of the year.

What has happened is testament not only to his resolve but also to that of those who have supported him throughout, who saw something in his captaincy that might not be automatically obvious. When Cook first took the job there was a slight sniffiness about it because he had been so overtly groomed for the post in succession to Andrew Strauss.

To many he did not seem to possess clear and present tactical or leadership qualifications. There was an element of the divine right of kings about the appointment.

Those early days attracted faint derision because his strategy seemed to lack imagination and occasionally direction. If he reacted to events, he did not seem always to be in charge of them. It was noticeable even then, however, that he was never ruffled.

Showing emotion in the heat of the battle amounted to Cook lifting up his cap and scratching his head. Unflappability in a captain should never be underestimated.

He went through a brief period of responding to his critics by placing fancy fields, a straight short mid-on here, a short fine leg there. Sometimes, not always, these decisions seemed to be saying “yah boo sucks” to the doubters rather than necessarily being the answer to the particular conundrum the batsman was at that moment presenting.

In those very early days when he took over from the vaunted Strauss in 2012 he could have placed a fielder on the moon had he wished. England went to India and won, always a devilishly difficult task, and Cook batted supremely. No captain had scored so many runs at the start of his tenure.

When the runs began to dry up and turned into a drought the perceived shortcomings of Cook’s captaincy were magnified. One was used as a stick to beat the other. England won the Ashes at home in 2013 but there was not much evident joy in the team.

By the time the next tour of Australia came round that winter, things started to unravel. Yet Cook continued to have the friends that matter. If this was perhaps partly because the selectors were reluctant to admit they had made a mistake and there were no other obvious candidates, it was also down to the fact that Cook is so patently a decent man. He has a natural dignity.

It was all too easy to overlook how much this simple but rare quality meant to the cricketing public. It became glaringly, heart-warmingly clear in the Test match at Southampton against India which followed the defeat at Lord’s. This much was essential: England needed to win, Cook needed runs.

On 15, he was dropped at slip, a straightforward chance. At lunch, having survived, he was given a standing ovation as he entered the pavilion. He had not by then done much but it was a touching moment.

Cook went on to make 95 that day and his run of innings without a century was to continue for an uncomfortably long time. But he turned a tricky corner at the Ageas Bowl on that Sunday (and probably negotiated a devilish chicane as well). England went on to win the match.

There had been two conflicting suspicions about Cook’s captaincy: the first was that England remained for long enough a team in Strauss’s image, and the second that Cook could be an inflexible, obstinate so-and-so.

The dark days of 2014 have, gradually, led to a transformation in Cook. England are slowly becoming a better team and Cook has become a much more flexible captain. He makes the decisions but he will also listen to the counsel of others.

The appointment of the Australian Trevor Bayliss as England’s coach this year has helped Cook. In Bayliss’s opinion it is up to the players to play and make decisions about how they might play, and he will not interfere.

Time in the job has helped, of course. The longer you are in it, the more sure you become of your ground. But Cook is more visibly relaxed with this new, young team. They look up to him and his record and he is aware of it. It shows in the easier, more confident way he speaks to the press. Occasionally he can still stumble over words but he delivers a plainer message in plainer language.

It helps that the runs have begun flowing again. To his own annoyance he was still short of runs in the wonderful victory against Australia this summer (he still has not scored an Ashes hundred in England) but since he broke the sequence of 35 Test innings without a century there have been two more – including the momentous 263 in Abu Dhabi recently.

England’s 2-0 Test defeat against Pakistan last month barely made a dent in his reputation. England will have to do better in South Africa but Cook is rightly, undoubtedly, unquestioningly the captain of England.

It is always tempting to wonder what would have happened had Ravi Jadeja held on, as he should have done, to that chance in Southampton.