The Autobiography

by Alastair Cook

  I had three months at home before a tour of the West Indies from mid-April. I had been worn down by the KP saga, with its blizzard of unflattering headlines. Even my default position, grinding my way out of trouble, seemed dispiritingly inadequate. I pride myself on self-reliance, but I needed Alice to retain my sanity.

  So much had happened in such a short space of time. I just unloaded on Alice, and her support was unwavering. I tried to see things from her perspective, as we were both coming to terms with the joys and responsibilities of the birth of our daughter, Elsie. Alice couldn’t score my runs, chair my team meetings, reply to my detractors. She had to endure my hurt at the relentless negativity. She was on the outside looking in, and I was on the inside, cut to the quick. I had to hunker down and wait for my reward, because it was me against the world.

  12. Redemption

  The tranquillity of Sugar Ridge, a $50-million, 43-acre complex overlooking Jolly Harbour on Antigua’s west coast, was deceptive. It might specialize in mindfulness and modern pampering, but over two long nights, locked in discussion with Peter Moores, it looked as if that was where my England Test captaincy would effectively come to an end.

  Normally, the tougher the situation in which I find myself, the more resolute I become, but this was an extended cry for help, during a drawn Test match at a time of transition. The Gimp was working overtime on my shoulder, telling me that I didn’t need the pressure. Until I poured my heart out to Peter, I was set on retiring at the end of the three-match series in the Caribbean.

  Although, behind the scenes, moves were being made to appoint Andrew Strauss to the newly created role of England’s director of cricket, the lessons of the previous fifteen months had not been heeded. I craved certainty, rather than well-meaning but damagingly casual interpretations of the situation regarding Kevin Pietersen.

  The media, loving the ambiguities of the story, were disinclined to take no for an answer, and needed little encouragement from Colin Graves, the incoming chairman of the ECB. He had muddied the waters in an interview with the BBC in early March by suggesting that KP could only be considered for an England recall if he was consistently scoring runs in county cricket.

  He doubled down on those comments in an interview with the Daily Telegraph, in which he observed, ‘What happened in the past is history.’ To be fair, he stressed he had no jurisdiction in matters of selection, but he urged readers to ‘forget personalities. Selectors pick the best players in form, taking wickets and scoring runs. That is their job.’

  Taken alongside a comment that, if KP scored really heavily, ‘they can’t ignore him, I would have thought’, it gave Kevin his chance to shine. He was without a county at the time, having signed to play in the IPL and Caribbean Premier League, but within a couple of hours of the original interview he had told Sky TV he valued the potential opportunity.

  He, too, doubled down in the Telegraph, where he was quoted as saying: ‘Do I want to play for England again? Yes, of course I do. My time with England was cut short and I have always said I want to play again.’ He promised to talk to Graves, a successful businessman who, in true Yorkshire tradition, evidently specialized in plain speaking.

  That trait had already complicated my captaincy, since he described the West Indies as ‘mediocre’. It was an unnecessarily provocative comment that led to the question ‘Are we mediocre?’ being plastered, in large letters, across their dressing-room wall. I had been looked after marvellously by the ECB for most of my career, but I didn’t think an administrator of his stature should not have used such language.

  I felt aggrieved that I was expected to suck it up and carry on regardless. Moores talked me round and, freed up mentally by the knowledge that my relationship with Strauss was about to be reinforced following the sacking of Paul Downton, I scored my first Test century in just under two years, 105, in the first innings of the frenetic final Test in Barbados.

  We lost, from a winning position, in three days and squandered the chance to take the series. That century had significance beyond its immediate inadequacy, because it was such a personal achievement, and I was distracted when asked in a post-match radio interview about the ‘mediocre’ comment. ‘That’s a Yorkshireman for you,’ I said jokingly. ‘They’re quite happy to talk a good game.’

  It’s fair to say this didn’t go down well with Geoffrey Boycott. I didn’t know him that well but had huge respect for him as a defining voice of cricket, and one of the best batsmen of his era. We often discussed the intricacies of the game, and laughed easily at his favourite line, ‘If I had a daughter, I’d let you marry her.’

  His newspaper column the following day accused me of being ‘so up his own arse, he thinks he is untouchable as captain’. For good measure, he added: ‘Cook acts as if he is the best captain England have ever had. He is living in cloud-cuckoo land about his captaincy ability.’ He described my relationship with Strauss as being too cosy.

  We would make up, over time, but he was in no mood to toss white roses at my feet when we met, coincidentally, that day at the Lone Star restaurant on the west coast of Barbados. Since the match had ended early, I was out with Alice, Trotty and his wife Abi. Geoffrey was hosting a touring party of fifteen cricket lovers.

  Given Dutch courage by a couple of lunchtime liveners, I wandered over and asked for a word, at his convenience. ‘Let’s do it now,’ he said, excusing himself from his guests. I knew he was serious when he brought over his favourite cushion to sit with us. With a deep breath, and without using one of his trademark sticks of rhubarb, I opened the batting.

  ‘Geoffrey,’ I said, ‘you and I have got on really well throughout my career. I’ve really appreciated you being a massive supporter of mine. I have absolutely no problem with you attacking how I bat, or with you criticizing my captaincy, because that is your job as a pundit. But to attack me personally in your column, as being arrogant, in a “who does he think he is?” sort of way, was wrong.’

  Boycott fixed me with a gimlet eye. ‘I think I’ve got the right to do that, because you slagged off a Yorkshireman in that radio interview,’ he said. ‘I was just defending him. You upset a Yorkshireman, so me being a Yorkshireman, I just went for you, no problem. What do Joe Root and Jonny Bairstow and all the Yorkshiremen in your team think of you now, then? You attacked one of us.’

  His reasoning was distinctive, to say the least. We talked around the issues for about twenty minutes but Geoffrey, rather like his political heroine Margaret Thatcher, was not for turning. He was unapologetic, and not having my counter-argument, that my teammates were unconcerned by what they took as light-hearted comments at the end of a tour.

  That storm in a Yorkshire teacup had blown itself out when I took a call from Strauss, who confided that he intended to sack Moores. I argued against it, from both a personal and professional point of view. I loved Peter as a bloke; he was a pillar of trust. He had been there for me in the Caribbean, when he’d understood the limits of my self-containment and I’d needed to blurt out some of my innermost feelings to someone who was deeply involved in my cricket.

  I was genuinely upset. To get rid of him as head coach while he was in the process of embedding a new generation of England players was, in my view, an avoidable error of judgement. He was, for instance, helping Ben Stokes through that formative initial cycle of being good, bad and average. Straussy acknowledged my input as captain, but was adamant we needed a more hands-off coach, in the mould of Duncan Fletcher.

  Moores deserved better than to be subjected to another PR disaster, when his departure was reported prematurely during a washed-out one-day international in Dublin, and not confirmed, along with the appointment of Strauss, until the following day. My sympathy for Peter was genuine, though I welcomed Andrew’s replacement of Paul Downton.

  Andrew was not coming in on mate’s rates. He balanced our friendship with his authority, and I respected him as a leader who made, and stood by, difficult decisions. That’s how a hierarchical system should work
. He was brilliant for me, and I had no problem with him being firm in his demands of me.

  KP was successfully reintegrating himself into county cricket with Surrey, but on the night before he completed an unbeaten innings of 355 against Leicestershire, Strauss told him his England career was over because of a ‘massive trust issue’. Kevin spoke of ‘deceit’ following his invitation to the meeting by Tom Harrison, the new chief executive of the ECB.

  To be brutally honest, when Strauss told me of his intentions, I went out and got drunk. Before that admission is taken out of context, I want to stress that this was not due to any personal animosity towards Kevin. We had both been dehumanized by the controversy, reduced to tokens of an argument staged, largely, by people who had never met us. I was relieved, released by the finality of the decision. It is no coincidence that, from that moment on, I found greater comfort in my batting.

  It was a time to re-evaluate, and repair personal relationships. I thought back to Antigua and the gym at Sugar Ridge, where Michael Vaughan and I had studiously ignored one another over a couple of days as we had completed our respective workouts. He had been critical of me. He had also piled into Trotty without knowing the circumstances when he left the Ashes tour in 2014.

  I put my wall up. I was prickly. The tension between us was obvious. Yet, on reflection, I realized that such sullen silence was wrong. As I said to Alice when I returned home, ‘He’s a bloke I batted with for England, a bloke I called Skipper. We can’t let things get to this.’

  Life isn’t lived in a straight line. Everyone goes through blips, and I would go through one more, talking starkly and occasionally darkly about my future as England captain with Paul Farbrace before that summer’s Ashes series. That’s the nature of leadership. You teeter between necessary optimism and understandable pessimism.

  Captaincy is rarely hunky dory. It just isn’t like that. I had been taking the job home more often than I should. Though I’m usually pretty good at leaving cricket at the door, it is impossible, no matter what anyone says, to do that consistently. It is always there, at the back of your mind. You need to establish a balance before you tip yourself over the edge.

  After speaking to Alice, I took the initiative, picked up the phone to Vaughan, and got a few things off my chest. I reasoned that whatever happened, things could not go any worse than they had done over the previous year or so. We arranged lunch, and he talked animatedly, and insightfully, about the Australians, and the nature of the challenge that awaited.

  I’d had a similar clear-the-air discussion with Shane Warne the previous year, telling him I found his criticism highly unfair. We had kept in touch, and the world hadn’t fallen in. That, and the appointment of Farbrace as interim coach for the two-Test series against New Zealand, helped me move from being a closed book to a more receptive personality.

  The mood was helped by the tenor of the opposition. The Kiwis, under Brendon McCullum, were a refreshingly open team. They reminded us it was possible to play Test cricket with spirit, and without a snarl. They were at ease. They had found themselves as a side. Losing didn’t hurt them any less, but they had more of a smile on their faces. They didn’t take themselves seriously.

  They knew what they were meant to be. They had an underdog’s mentality and chased the ball to the boundary as if their lives depended on it until the moment it hit the rope. As McCullum explained over a beer, ‘We can’t afford not to. We’re not good enough to go, “Oh, well, someone else will just score those four runs …”’

  I had played with Tim Southee, their right-arm fast-medium bowler, for Essex. He summed up their approach perfectly: ‘I tried sledging. I tried being that tough macho man, but it just felt so awkward. It wasn’t me. My way of playing is to give a little gyp, but not to be afraid of laughing at the funny moments. You have to be comfortable in yourself.’

  That was the perfect message, at the perfect time, for an England team that had moved on from the more austere, methodical and introverted side that enjoyed such success under Andy Flower. We were less consistent, perhaps more naturally talented, and certainly more free-spirited. In psychological terms, we had more yellows and greens. I could be more relaxed with them as a leader.

  It’s funny. When your career is in the books, you forget the dark moments, and even some of the highs, but I’ll remember that 124-run victory against the Kiwis in the first Test at Lord’s in late May for a long, long time. The 100th match between the countries, it was sensational, one of the best I’ve played in. The old place was rocking, and the game ebbed and flowed marvellously; a record 1,610 runs were scored.

  You don’t often come from behind in the way we did, fighting back from 30–4 on the first morning, conceding a first-innings deficit of 134, and securing our fifth win in seven Tests with less than ten overs to spare. Ben Stokes was brilliant, following 92 in the first innings with an eighty-five-ball 100 in the second. He provided further momentum by taking the wickets of Kane Williamson and McCullum in successive deliveries.

  My 162 in the second innings was one of my best, for several reasons. I batted instinctively, with freedom and fluency, despite admitting to Farby on the third day, when I was 32 not out overnight, that I was still struggling with the stress of captaincy. He revealed the essence of his coaching style, which involves a basic understanding of the human condition, by suggesting we talk over a beer.

  He would revert to his role as assistant for the Ashes once Trevor Bayliss had been confirmed as head coach, and had the perfect personality for a number two. Across sport, they tend to be the guy players unload upon, use almost as a conduit of emotion. Farby’s easygoing nature was summed up in his team talk before the one-day series against the Kiwis: ‘Fuck it. Let’s just go and whack it.’

  Trevor is very quiet, a lot cleverer than he lets on. His mask is to play the Aussie fool, the man in the floppy hat who sits at the corner of an outback bar, nursing a stubbie. When he does speak, his views are intelligent, well thought out and to the point. He was great for me because he wanted me to lead on my own initiative, rather than slavishly following a preordained plan.

  That Ashes series would be my redemption. No one really gave us too much of a chance, but I sensed something stirring during a training camp in Spain. We didn’t take cricket bats. We concentrated on slip catching for hours and spoke honestly to one another about our expectations. Scar tissue began to heal.

  There was no point in hiding from the reality, that we had been humiliated the previous year. Mitchell Johnson was still being spoken of as a major threat. Yet Trevor, in his understated way, cut through recently formed reputations. He broke down the Australians both as players and as people, highlighting technical flaws and well-disguised fears.

  Having destroyed the mystique, he then concentrated on our own outlook. We would follow the McCullum principle, and be open to both the public and, most pertinently, the opposition. We had nothing to hide and would have a lot to be proud of. Three days before the first Test we invited the Aussies into our dressing room after the game, win or lose.

  Darren Lehmann, their coach, refused. We thought it strange, because there were no ulterior motives involved. Their reaction suggested they were just like us, human beings with inconsistencies and insecurities. We were at ease. We would play without fear and avoid the blame game if things went wrong. It was liberating, and, for the Aussies, disconcerting. I was encouraged to be unorthodox in my captaincy, and to embrace calculated risk.

  Perhaps I overdid my bit for team morale by being hit in the balls, attempting to collect a sharply bouncing ricochet. Boy, did it hurt. Joe Root was in hysterics as the doctor came on to count them, for the first time since I was about thirteen. I forgave him, through the thinnest of smiles, because he had changed the complexion of a match played on a low, slow wicket.

  The beauty of sport, and also its terror, is captured by two words, ‘if only’. Things could have played out so differently had Rooty not been dropped, second ball, by Brad Haddin. We wou
ld have been 43–4 on the first morning and facing familiar demons. He scored 194 runs over the match, took two wickets with his occasional off-spin, and claimed the winning catch off Moeen Ali.

  Funny old game.

  As part of what was literally an open-door policy, I had resolved to invite former England greats into the dressing room to share our ambitions and understand our strategies. Beefy Botham had been with us that week; his role included the ceremonial awarding of the football trophy. The early morning kickabout had been banned by the ECB until Farby announced, in that languid way of his, ‘I don’t care. Let’s play.’

  The acid test of such new-found inclusivity and positivity was, of course, defeat. We were smashed in the next Test, at Lord’s. Steve Smith got a double hundred and put on 284 for the second wicket with Chris Rogers, who made 173. I had my brain fade against Mitch Marsh at 96 in the first innings before we were bowled out for 103 in thirty-seven overs in the second, to lose by 405 runs.

  Here we go again. Mitchell Johnson was hailed as a heavy-metal hero. Some sages missed the point by suggesting we were handicapped by playing on poor county pitches, but Mitchell took the pitch out of the equation: we don’t often face bowling of that pace and quality in England. Our shot selection was poor. It was a pick-and-mix assortment of excuses and familiar complaints. ‘The sun will come up in the morning,’ Bayliss assured us. ‘It’s OK. We’ve just lost a game of cricket. We’ll regroup.’

  With that, he ushered us into two of the best weeks of our lives.

  I hardly slept over that fortnight, a maximum of three hours each night. The difference was that my insomnia was due to excitement at the possibilities of a rapidly developing team, rather than dread of the consequences of individual or collective failure. The new mood was natural, rather than a shallow piece of public relations. Even the nerves had a different connotation. Everything felt right.