After finishing the series against Sri Lanka with 5-2 defeat the English ODI and Test captain Alastair Cook has said that he has to “wait and see” if he is going to remain ODI captain of the team or not. He even added that he will have ‘no complaints’ if he has to stood down from the responsibility.
The buzz regarding his role as a captain of ODI team was already there even before the series got started in the emerald Island. But with this dismal performance by both himself and the team now it is almost certain that we may see a new captain for the English campaign down under to lift their first ever ODI World Cup. Cook, 29, admitted that neither he got as many runs he would like to score nor his team won enough games he would like them to win. He has left to the selectors to see whether he is still the right person to lead the team or not.
Well known scribe and BBC’s cricket correspondent Jonathan Agnew is of the opinion that what Alastair Cook badly needs is the form and he should be scoring more runs in Test Cricket than anyone else has ever done in the past. The more he is trying to get back his form more are the chances that he might not get it back again! This says the story completely about Cook.
According to the head coach of England, Peter Moores, the ECB will review Cook’s position during the course of this week. Despite saying time and again that he is ‘extremely hungry’ for runs, Cook has been able to register only 119 runs in the six games he played in Sri Lanka and his highest score was just 34. In the entire calendar year Cook has not scored a single century as his average stands at 27.52 fairly poor and his strike rate is unconvincing 71.25 for a top order player in ODIs.
His poor form has forced him to make some poor decisions on the field as well and thus it has not helped to lift the moral of the team as well. The final 15 for the ICC World Cup 2015 has to be announced on or before 7th January and whether change of guard or dropping Cook from that final 15 will help England to do better than what it looks now is rather difficult prediction to make.
England will play its first game of the ICC World Cup 2015 against their old enemy and the co-hosts Australia on 14th February at MCG.