The Autobiography

by Alastair Cook

  He hadn’t reached out to the group, and you do worry about someone you don’t see on tour. I tried to coax him out of his room but, to be honest, he was erratic. Was his self-containment a necessary shield we had taken away briefly, albeit for all the right reasons? All I know is his decline was sad, and deeply affecting.

  He had quickly become a cult figure on coming into the England team. He bowled beautifully, with a lovely shape on the ball, massive hands, great control, a very repeatable action. A couple of steps in, arms up, good pace. His skill was just to bowl the same ball, one after the other. He held an end up, and rarely bowled a bad delivery.

  Whenever he fielded the ball, he received a huge cheer. He worked very hard on his batting and would get a standing ovation for a forward defensive. He had a loveable simplicity in that he knew about little else than bowling and Sikhism. Were people laughing with him or at him? Did his exposure, as one of the most recognizable figures in the country, exacerbate underlying problems? Was he ready for the pressure, the scrutiny, the expectation, the celebrity, the fame? There were, for the time being, more questions than answers.

  Swanny came to me, admitting that he expected to be dropped in favour of Monty after bowling poorly in the second-Test defeat at Adelaide. I asked him, as one of my senior lieutenants, to help generate the energy we required to stop the rot in Perth, which is rarely receptive to spin. He agreed, but in his head, he had already retired.

  Perth was my 100th Test, and one of my most dispiriting. Swanny picked up three wickets but told me it had been the longest five days of his life. The last place he wanted to be was on a cricket field. His elbow hurt badly, but there was more to it than that. I looked into his eyes and knew that, mentally, he had gone. A light had been extinguished. He had hidden his hurt from his teammates, but the bubbly guy to whom everyone gravitated was consumed by sadness and frustration. I agreed to an announcement in Melbourne but, given my time again, would have asked him to keep our conversation confidential, and remain on tour for appearances’ sake.

  He wasn’t stupid. He knew the uproar he would create. He accepted he would be portrayed as a bottler, a bloke who abandoned ship. No one has a divine right to play for England. Representing your country, reflecting your culture, is a special honour, to be treated with appropriate respect. His decision, in the middle of a series, was far from ideal, but I didn’t feel fundamentally let down.

  To go back to Flower’s central point, Test cricket is quite literally a test of individual character. Who am I to say that Swanny hadn’t made the harder, more courageous decision? He knew he had lost the necessary edge. The spark had gone. Instead of bottling it, had he simply realized he had nothing left? Maybe he just took the brave decision.

  There wasn’t time to process the answers, because problems were multiplying. Matt Prior, a stalwart of the team, was dropped for the final two Test matches. I had that so-called toilet chat. He was out of form and not doing himself justice. It suggested, to me, that he had been worn down by the intensity of international cricket.

  It hurt, because he had turned up for the tour in the best physical shape I’d seen. He retained his hunger and ambition, but even those admirable qualities created tension because KP objected to him taking a leadership role in team meetings after his demotion. I felt his comments were a supportive gesture, and an indication of his devastation; Kevin appeared to be more suspicious.

  Relationships were splintering. KP had a massive fallout with Graham Gooch on the balcony at Perth, after he had tried to hit Lyon out of the ground, into the wind, and was caught at deep long on by Harris. I sat between them, all too aware of my first-ball dismissal, as Goochy repeated, ‘Shit shot, shit shot,’ and Kevin replied with a few choice words of his own.

  Damage was creeping from the field to the changing room. A team that once had a unique form of resilience was falling apart. We shied away from answering the toughest questions. Were we hiding from Mitchell Johnson? Why hadn’t we, as a leadership team, addressed his threat properly, instead of expecting people to play him as they wished?

  Flower had been meeting KP on a weekly basis since 2012, to discuss potential problems as part of a proactive managerial strategy. It wasn’t as disruptive as has been claimed, but KP was high maintenance. He aired the possibility of flying home from Perth because of soreness in his knee but was talked down by Mushtaq Ahmed.

  To be fair to him, he applied himself well in the final two Tests, without answering wider doubts about his motives. He was studiously engaged in public, helping less experienced players in the nets. Some saw ulterior motives, a politician creating a favourable impression. On balance, I preferred to give him the benefit of the doubt.

  It was an extraordinarily febrile time, and mistakes were made under pressure. Joe Root had only one score over 26 in the first four Tests, but our batting was collectively poor. My 2010 series average of 127 certainly seemed an anomaly. Joe didn’t deserve to be singled out and dropped for Sydney; it proved a pivotal moment in his career. He used his disappointment and resentment positively, as motivation never to allow himself to be in that situation again.

  Goochy, old school to the last, thought I should have administered more bollockings in team meetings. It wasn’t as simple as shouting. I had my head down, re-evaluating my approach, and realized I needed to take greater control. That meant easing my reliance on Flower, whose approach was criticized fiercely by KP in an intense players’-only meeting after defeat in Melbourne.

  I’d depended on Andy too much and needed to drive the group in a different direction. As players, we needed to take ownership of our plight. That change of emphasis didn’t startle or intimidate me, because successful teams tend to have strong captains, assisted by coaches who drive behind-the-scenes improvement. My apprenticeship as a captain was complete.

  The buck stopped with me. I tried to hold my head high and made a point of going out to see the Barmy Army in Sydney, but the loneliness of leadership hit home. Failure, on that scale, is an extremely public process. Press conferences were brutal, though I sensed a degree of respect because when the story is that big the captain is only one of many characters to consider.

  Everyone had a view. Opinions were being formed on little or no knowledge. I understood the process, accepted that cricket was part of the national conversation and promised myself never to react impulsively. Some of the second-hand stuff I heard or read was nonsense, but I ignored it. All I could do was act on one of international sport’s truisms and attempt to control the controllables.

  Paul Downton arrived in Australia to evaluate the mood, and consult those closest to the issues, prior to taking up the role of the ECB’s managing director on 1 February 2014. I spent a couple of hours with Ashley Giles, coach of the one-day side, in his room, trying to rationalize what the future looked like.

  Andy’s time as Test team director was clearly coming to an end. He’d had enough. It was an obvious opportunity to reassess and rebuild. I still wanted to lead and was told I retained the confidence of my employers. There were signs of promise, in Ben Stokes and Joe Root, but discussions kept returning to the thorniest issue: what should we do about Kevin?

  KP had returned home after the Ashes series. I spoke separately to Downton and Giles Clarke, the ECB chairman. Giles has a polarizing personality, but I found him intelligent and impressive, especially in board meetings. I realized the gravity of some of the conversations, and wanted to give a balanced view, without excessive emotion.

  Should I have shared my thoughts, in depth, with KP as part of that process? Probably so, though the atmosphere was not conducive to mutual trust. He was publicly bullish about his desire to help us regain the Ashes in 2015, but my sense, over the previous twelve months, was that his ambition had waned. I thought he’d had his fill of playing for England.

  As a captain, I had to cut through the noise and glitter of the KP brand and analyse his impact on those around him. Managing him on a day-to-day basis was fine. Small issues,
such as his expectation that he would occasionally be given special dispensation, were dealt with relatively smoothly, though prone to potential complication.

  Kevin, an imposing figure, had a major impact on the dressing room. If he didn’t particularly care about something, or if, conversely, he had powerful views on a certain issue, he had the capacity to drag people with him subconsciously. A senior player, particularly one of his stature and aura, has a profound responsibility to the group.

  He was never nasty, but had been in hundreds of team meetings during a glittering career. If he didn’t want to be there, he made it pretty obvious. Over time, that became draining. Even his staunchest supporters would concede that, to paraphrase the mischievous chat-show host Graham Norton, he was an individual in a team sport.

  Helping to decide his future was the hardest aspect of my career as England captain. I had huge respect for him as a cricketer, and was determined to judge him from personal experience rather than the myths and legends that had been built around him. I had never, for instance, heard him issue the supposed ‘him or me’ ultimatum during his dispute with Peter Moores, so I refused to allow it to influence me.

  I factored in Kevin’s achievements over 104 Tests and 136 one-day internationals. Although this was strictly relative, given our collectively poor form with the bat on that Ashes tour, he had been our highest run scorer with 293. Yet I felt strongly, as captain, that we had reached the stage where we would get more out of up-and-coming players who were desperate to prove themselves.

  I recommended that he should step away from the England team. All that remained was for the firestorm to break.

  11. Fallout

  Ending anyone’s international career is a horrible, hateful experience. When it concerns a globally renowned, passionately admired figure you have played alongside for eight years it is uniquely uncomfortable. There is no easy way to express the hardest truth of elite sport, that everyone, to a lesser or greater degree, lives on borrowed time.

  We didn’t need Wisden to measure Kevin Pietersen’s stature. Statistics, 8,181 Test runs at an average of 47.28, incorporating thirty-two hundreds for England across all forms of the game, merely hint at the majesty of the memories he created. Ultimately his personality was as integral to the decision as his waning powers of performance.

  Andy Flower, as expected, had resigned as director of the Test team a couple of days earlier. Kevin had never really convinced him that he bought into the principle of being a team player without reservation. A consensus had emerged during the one-day series in Australia, and on our return home, that a statement of intent and a reaffirmation of trust were overdue.

  Kevin was centrally contracted but, like all of us, had no guarantee of selection. Simply not picking him was a theoretical option, but I supported Paul Downton, the ECB’s managing director. ‘I don’t want that cloud hanging over us,’ he told James Whitaker, the national selector, and me. ‘I don’t want every press conference to start with the question, “Is KP coming back?” I don’t want us to get bowled out cheaply and have everyone asking, “Is KP coming back?”’

  Paul was my boss. He had the authority to confirm the big decision and wanted to make a clean break. As captain, my opinions carried weight. I had a responsibility to communicate the views of other senior players. Like me, they felt it was time to move on without Kevin, so that we could all have breathing room. It was not a final banishment, because in international sport no one can say never, but on a human level I felt a sense of dread. We were dealing with someone with whom I’d shared some magical experiences.

  I met Downton and Whitaker in the coffee shop of the Danubius Hotel in St John’s Wood, opposite the Nursery End at Lord’s. No one was entirely sure how Kevin was going to react when we called him into a first-floor meeting room. I knew what was going to be said. As a player you learn to cope with nerves, but I can’t lie. It was a deeply unpleasant experience.

  Formalities were icy, as they tend to be in this type of situation in any job. Downton thanked Kevin for his service to English cricket, paid due homage to the magnitude of his career, but ended a brief summary with the words ‘we are no longer going to pick you for England’. Kevin was poker-faced, stood up and said, ‘OK, thanks,’ and walked out of the room.

  The meeting had lasted, in my estimation, no more than three minutes. Kevin would later describe me as a ‘company man’ who looked down at his shoes throughout the process. It’s true there were moments when I studied the carpet, because this was not a decision taken lightly, but I made a point of making eye contact. I didn’t say a word because there simply wasn’t time to do so.

  Kevin was a barrier to progress, a source of distraction, and I suspect he knew what was coming. There was a momentary silence when he walked out, a brief calm before the storm. Downton’s public suggestion that ‘the time is right to rebuild not only the team but also the team ethic’ set off a predictable chain of events.

  The dignity of Kevin’s initial statement, in which he spoke of his pride and honour at playing for England, didn’t last. What followed was a classic example of the ‘pile on’, a social-media phenomenon fuelled by egotism, ignorance, smugness and often superficial anger, which feeds off itself until it assumes a significance out of all proportion to the subject. Just a few people can be very, very noisy.

  The campaign against us was well orchestrated and floated on hot air. Its principal cheerleader called me ‘a repulsive little weasel’, which might have had greater impact had it been said to my face. Matty Prior was accused of ‘backstabbing’ and Andy Flower was unfairly attacked. We faced a modern dilemma: would responding to such unwarranted slurs merely add to the hysteria?

  Probably so, but the abuse was so personal, and the situation so tawdry, that the Professional Cricketers’ Association, our union, in conjunction with the ECB, felt impelled to act. An ECB statement referred to ‘a breach of trust and team ethics’. It supported both my captaincy and the culture we were attempting to create. Confidence was also expressed in Prior and Flower.

  The over-riding irony was that the three of us had done everything possible to make the relationship work. We had driven the decision to bring Kevin back in 2012, and gave him the chance to extend his international career. That was lost on those swept along by inaccurate perceptions of betrayal. At times, they seemed beyond reason.

  The vehemence of such personalized attacks is disturbing, and there would be moments in the months to come when I felt isolated and persecuted, scapegoated by people who gleefully picked at the scab of an ultimately pointless debate. I must admit I didn’t see any evidence of Kevin’s sensitivity to others, which seemed so central to his supporters, but I’m not one for bitterness.

  Others in the firing line, principally Andy and Matty, had also done nothing to merit such denigration. Claims of a bullying culture were completely wide of the mark, but as contracted players we were ordered by the ECB not to respond because they didn’t want the situation to be further inflamed. We weren’t allowed to provide context. I am all for keeping a dignified silence, but it was a mess.

  Was the atmosphere in the England dressing room uncomfortable at times? You bet. That’s inevitable when you have highly competitive people who don’t conform to the so-called norm striving for the sort of success that’s very public but acutely personal. These were once-in-a-generation players, driven by the intensity of a consciously created climate.

  Of course, there was piss-taking, which exists in every dressing room at every level of the game. It’s politically incorrect, most of the time, often childish, but harmless because it is not vindictive or intended to be taken seriously.

  Of course, we were imperfect. Of course, there were moments of tension. Jonathan Trott flew at Matty Prior when he criticized a mistake in the field. ‘Don’t you ever speak to me like that again!’ he yelled. ‘Well, you’re fucking fielding for England, mate,’ Prior replied. They had a stand-up row, sorted out their differences like adults and mov
ed on immediately.

  As captain I was comfortable with allowing senior players their head in the dressing room. These people cared. It is not a place for tra-la-la innocence. No one walks in trilling, ‘Morning, everyone. What a wonderful day.’ Mockery is delivered on a give-and-take basis. Nicknames, such as ‘Cheese’, which Prior picked up at Sussex, tend to stick.

  Flower inherited chaos, and imposed order with greater sensitivity than his authoritarian image suggests. I enjoyed working with him, even though things ended badly. I’m happy to march behind anyone who possesses the cojones to call out Robert Mugabe as the man who ruined Zimbabwe, Andy’s country. That takes a rare form of moral courage. The stability he brought gave us the extra 2 per cent that is so often decisive. He strengthened the bubble, acted as a doorkeeper to our world. Andy might not have been as good at empowering players as someone like Trevor Bayliss, who is skilful in fostering a spirit of independence, but I valued his directness, shrewdness and honesty.

  The relationship between captain and coach is pivotal. Each must be comfortable with his role and responsibilities. Differences, in terms of selection strategies or training plans, can be dealt with if there is mutual trust and respect, but ultimately the coach is there to support the captain. Andy was the perfect guide in my early days, because he managed my workload and allowed me to concentrate on my game. As I grew stronger as a leader, I knew I needed to take greater responsibility.

  We all develop. Andy didn’t like grey areas, and if you spoke to him today he would perhaps accept he could have been a better listener. He admitted to me recently that, given his time again, he would still coach the player, but pay more attention to coaching the person. On one thing he cannot be challenged, however: he helped to maximize talent and developed a team through his willingness to confront difficult issues. His skill as a coach was to ask uncomfortable questions of his players.