Cook the wrong choice
With Alastair Cook expected to replace Andrew Strauss as England's one-day captain, Mike Selvey writes in the Guardian that Cook should not even be opening for England in ODIs, let alone captaining
Dustin Silgardo
25-Feb-2013
With Alastair Cook expected to replace Andrew Strauss as England's one-day captain, Mike Selvey writes in the Guardian that Cook should not even be opening for England in ODIs, let alone captaining. He points out that Cook's appointment would also mean England would have three different captains for the various formats of the game.
But what is of overriding concern is the effect that the captaincy could have on Cook's own game, the bread and butter of Test cricket. A year ago he was being tormented outside off stump, his bat edge drawn to the ball as if magnetised. Wicketkeeper and slips dared not waver in concentration for a moment. Then, finally, in Australia, he got his bearings, memorably so, to the tune of 766 Test runs. Fundamental to that was his unwavering capacity to ignore, for hour upon hour, the delivery outside off that so often had been his undoing.
Yet the angled nudge down to third man is a default shot in one-day cricket, an instinctive stroke, productive in the frequent absence of close fielders and one that those grounded in ODIs who then come to Test matches have to fight to expunge from their games. Think Eoin Morgan. Yet here we shall be, asking Cook to reintroduce that to his weaponry.
In the Telegraph, Huw Turbervill looks at previous occasions when England have had different captains for the longer and shorter formats of the game, and whether the experiments worked.
Adam Hollioake was made England's 50-over captain while Mike Atherton was Test skipper. Hollioake led an inexperienced line-up to an unexpected triumph in the Champions Trophy in Sharjah in late 1997 and the move was applauded.
Dustin Silgardo is a former sub-editor at ESPNcricinfo