294 runs. 545 balls. Over 13 hours. These are figures which could perhaps belong to a slightly under par innings from a test match team. They do not. They belong to Alastair Cook, who batted throughout a team effort which saw England rack up 710-7 against the number one ranked team in test cricket. Cook's personal total beat that number one ranked team's by itself. It virtually guarantees the England will beat India, and take that number one crown from them. So what's the problem then?
Cook batted slowly. "Turgid," the article called it, citing Geoffrey Boycott of Test Match Special as the antagonist behind the remark. Of course. We are perhaps the only nation who can find such fault with such victory.
If our football team won the World Cup, winning each game either 1-0 or on penalties, after a turgid 0-0, you can imagine our own fans, hopefully tongue-on-cheek, chanting: 'Boring boring England.'
In cricket we revere the Kevin Pietersens and the Freddie Flintoffs. Alastair Cook is well on his way, at only 26, to being, without hyperbole, the greatest English batsman of all time. His stats are already up there. But he should play with more panache. Perhaps he should emulate the Kevin Pietersens rather than the (ironically) Geoff Boycotts of this world.
Or, perhaps we should get off his back and praise him for doing what we should have been crying out for someone to step up and do years ago: to play the way we have had to endure others playing against us. Mohammed Youssuf of Pakistan. Rahul Dravid of India. Now Alastair Cook of England. Batsmen with the mindset to bat and bat and bat. To make big hundreds. To make double hundreds. To make bowling attacks despair. To concentrate, for hours or days, on not getting out. Taking the runs as they are offered, never searching for them. Never offering your wicket for them.
This is, after all, test match cricket. And, yes, we do enjoy watching KP, but we do need a lynch-pin too. In Cook we have that, and long may it continue.
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