Alastair Cook

England's top-order batting is dicey and their pace attack lacks variety

Another defeat would condemn England to No.7 in the Test rankings, and surely spell the end of Trevor Bayliss's tenure as Test coach

He is going through a bit of a rough patch, but the men opening with him have done far worse

He has urged his team-mates to "stick together" after the nine-wicket defeat at Lord's which has led to heavy criticism

Even at his most fluent, Cook cannot avoid being ungainly. But without him on the first day at Lord's, England would have been sunk without trace

Joe Root enters his second season as Test captain with England having many of the same questions to answer as 12 months ago

Joe Clarke's latest century will have alerted the new England selector Ed Smith, but would a call-up be too much, too soon?

Alastair Cook looked to have suffered no lasting effects from a testing winter as he returned to Essex's Championship side with familiar certainty

The career of England's leading run-scorer epitomises an era in which English cricket has been divorced from popular culture, and the ECB are now paying the price

Alastair Cook has admitted England were curious about how Australia got the ball to reverse-swing on the final day of the Perth Test after heavy rain

England's head coach has hinted that the batting line-up is unlikely to change much for the series against Pakistan in May, despite few of the issues being resolved over the winter

Alastair Cook will attempt to restate his England credentials in front of the England captain, Joe Root, in one of the Championship's most attractive early-season fixtures

Another cheap dismissal pushing at Trent Boult extended Alastair Cook's run of indifferent form - but it never pays to write off England's leading Test run-scorer

Alastair Cook knows that he still has much to prove at the top of England's order despite a memorable double-century in Melbourne

The best Test batting performances of the year span venues from across the continents

Mostly because it lacked a competent England side

It was another bruising Ashes campaign down under for England who had moments in each of the five Tests they couldn't take advantage of. Have any players left with enhanced reputations and who is looking over their shoulder?

There are structural flaws in the English game and those will have an effect, no matter how many reasons for celebration off the field