Alastair Cook's mind games

It was a typically flat Adelaide pitch on which Australia batted first and posted a resounding 570 for 9. It was the second Test of the 2013-14 Ashes, and England's captain, Alastair Cook, was expected to provide his team with a solid foundation when it was their turn to bat. After the meek surrender in the first Test, at the Gabba, it was imperative that England bounced back quickly.

Besides, the 65 that Cook had scored in the second innings of the first Test was the highest individual score for an England batsman in the match, so effectively he was the only England batsman with some sort of form going into the second Test. He walked in with loads of expectations on his shoulders but had to walk back with only 3 on the board, after facing 11 balls. ESPNcricinfo's ball-by-ball commentary says this about his dismissal:

That delivery began a downward spiral in Cook's batting form. Innings after innings he was found out with both feet inside the crease to full-pitched deliveries. He also went chasing after balls that he would otherwise have left alone.

It was thought that Cook's trigger movement was a major part of the problem, for he was moving into his crease before the ball was bowled, and that supposedly led to him being late on balls that were meant to be played off the front foot. Some experts thought the depth of the stride backwards was not the only problem: there was also the fact that he was on the move while the bowler was releasing the ball. It did make sense, for staying still in the stance at the time of release is essential to picking up the line and length correctly. All preparatory movements must start and finish before the bowler releases the ball; if that does not happen, you're doomed.

A lot has changed since then. After a reasonably long dry spell, Cook is back among the runs. So has he revisited his technique and changed something?

Surprisingly, he hasn't. During his trigger movement he is still going back and across, and he is still a little bit on the move when the bowler is releasing the ball. What has changed then? How is it that he can score runs against top-quality bowlers despite shortcomings that his downfall before? Are the bowlers not smart enough to bowl full or in the areas where he was found wanting 12 months ago? To understand Cook's predicament, you must move beyond the obvious and take a closer look at the intangibles.

Cook's biggest strength isn't a watertight technique but the ability to concentrate for long periods, and that is all to do with the mind. When he is playing well, he is able to control his mind - he doesn't allow it to wander or get lured into false strokes. In other words, when he is able to control his mind, he plays well.

Like all good, orthodox Test openers, he is a sceptic by nature. He views the red ball headed in his direction with a certain amount of suspicion. It might look like an innocuous straight ball but he sees it as a potential threat, for it might tail back in or go away before or after landing. He will not commit himself to a shot unless he is 100% certain that he knows everything about that particular ball that there is to know.

Good batsmen make bowlers bowl in areas where they want them to. Players like David Warner who want bowlers to bowl short achieve that goal by going after everything that pitches fuller. So the bowlers are forced to play to the batsman's strength.

Cook, on the other hand, wants bowlers to bowl straight to him so that he can play his most productive shots - off his legs through the on side. To achieve that, he has to leave everything that is outside off and tire the bowler. If the batsman knows where his off stump is and has the patience to leave everything that does not require playing at, sooner or later the bowler errs in line and bowls straighter. This is something Cook was able to do against New Zealand and at Lord's this Ashes. He has made quality bowlers like Mitchell Starc, Trent Boult and Mitchell Johnson bowl to his strengths.

No doubt there was a lot on Cook's mind during the 2013-14 Ashes and through the year that followed. Perhaps his slump had something to do with his technique, but my guess is it had more to do with the mind. Cook is not the kind of player to hit his way back into form. For him to score runs, he has to work hard, and for that to happen his mind needs to be emptied of unwanted thoughts.

Now he is back in what we refer to as his "comfort zone". He is comfortable with his trigger movement, he is picking the lines really well, and the mind is seemingly at peace again, isolated from his surroundings. The same 90mph bolt from Johnson that looked too fast in the Australian summer of 2013-14 is manageable in the English summer of 2015. While some may argue that Cook is getting more time to deal with these deliveries on slower English pitches, I say it wasn't the quick Australian pitches that left him without enough time - it was his own cluttered mind.