Alastair Cook decision overturned on review

England's cricket media this week called for video replay of the debate about Alastair Cook's captaincy.

With it emerging that England are now brilliant at cricket after all, pundits and former players have reviewed tapes of themselves talking about Cook and admitted that their original verdict was incorrect.

Several experts are expected to argue that while it may have looked in real-time that Cook was a complete disaster, further replays indicate that MS Dhoni may have touched even greater heights of hopelessness.

"During the Lord's Test, it was clear that Cook had hit rock bottom and had to walk for the good of the team," said one respected broadsheet correspondent. "Looking at it again, my view pitched outside the bounds of reasonability, and it in fact turns out that Alastair, or our wonderful skipper as I affectionately like to think of him, should be safely in the job for years to come."

On further review, argued a controversial former Australian Test great, it is, in fact, Dhoni who is out of his depth.

"Look, this is a game of very fine margins," he said. "At the time I was probably right to say that Cook was a disaster and he had a lot to learn from someone like Dhoni. It's really a question of millimetres between that and my current completely correct view, which is that Dhoni is a terrible captain and miles behind Cook."

It has now emerged that technology, rather than the expert individuals, may have been to blame for the howler.

"This is a clear case of the camera foreshortening the view of what we were seeing on the pitch," admitted a veteran broadcaster.

"It may have appeared a couple of weeks ago that Cook had completely dropped the ball but actually when you look at it again from another angle, he's really taken a clear turn for the good and is actually a fair captain after all."

"Dhoni on the other hand ought to be ashamed of himself for claiming to be an international captain when it is now perfectly obvious that his reputation is in the dirt."

"Sometimes things look different in three dimensions than they do on a flat page," said a respected analyst. "Such as in my newspaper, which appeared to state, 'Get rid of this pathetic loser Cook right now', when in fact it was actually 'Sorry Alastair, you've been brilliant and please can I still keep coming to the press conferences?' The eyes can play funny tricks on us all."