Alastair Cook was a nice, reliable England Test captain but not a great one
Alastair Cook will not be remembered as one of England’s great Test captains.
He will be recalled as a nice, reliable and uncontroversial skipper who over the last couple of years has taken a young England side to pretty good heights and laid the foundations for that team to achieve more in the future.
Others have taken to the role of captain almost immediately but that was never the case with Essex left-hander Cook, whose tactics outside of England were lacking in the early stages of his reign.
What he must be applauded for, however, is having the determination and strength to come back from a barrage of criticism at times, regain the Ashes in 2015 and lead a team which has improved immensely over recent years.
There is no doubt that the 32-year-old improved and he ended his tenure as a much better leader than when he started but due to some of his early struggles he can’t be mentioned in the same bracket as a Michael Vaughan or Andrew Strauss.
I have previously written that if Cook had the appetite and motivation to continue I’d like to have seen him lead England to Australia this winter before passing on the baton.
But now he’s decided to step down it’s time to look to the future and I can’t see the England and Wales Cricket Board looking beyond Joe Root, who is expected to be appointed as Cook’s successor next week.
The Yorkshireman is someone who will automatically command respect given what he has achieved, across all formats, in his career so far.
It’s hard to tell until the moment comes but, if given the job, I would also envisage Root being a more inventive and attacking captain than his predecessor. I certainly hope the 26-year-old has the confidence to be slightly more aggressive.
When a player becomes a captain, they inevitably have to stop being one of the lads to an extent and distance themselves from the dressing room banter. But Root is a cheeky chappy, someone who likes to have a laugh and I would love him not to lose that characteristic too much.
I see Root in a similar mould to current Australia captain Steve Smith, another who likes a joke. Those two are a similar age, have scored a comparable amount of runs and boast Test averages above 50.
But there are other similarities. I remember playing against Steve Smith during the 2010-11 Ashes series Down Under in an ‘A’ team fixture.
We all had a couple of drinks after the game in Hobart and Smith was more than a little the worse for wear the next day at the airport and could barely stand.
He was very much one of the lads back then but he has matured with age. While he has had some difficult moments, Smith has done a pretty good job of leading Australia and I would expect Root to do the same and take it all in his stride.
I’m sure Root’s mischievous and humorous streak wouldn’t completely go away. But at the same time, whether through the expected captaincy or him naturally maturing — he’s a father now — he probably won’t be the same Jack the Lad character he was three or four years ago.
Smith, incidentally, also represents a good example of someone whose batting hasn’t suffered with the so-called burden of captaincy, which has been raised as a concern given Root’s status as England’s best run-scorer.