Alastair Cook is sui generis among a sizeable group of England captains who have led teams in India starting from the ‘Bodyline’ fame Douglas Jardine in 1933. So far 16 have had the distinction to have led in 55 Test matches.
For many decades the teams — from Jardine to Tony Greig (1977) — played under the banner of Marylebone Cricket Club (MCC), but since 1981-82, the men from Old Blighty have played truly as an England team under the captaincy of Keith Fletcher who has the unique honour of leading in a six-Test series in 1981-82.
Born in Gloucestershire, the 31-year-old Cook, trained by former England captain Graham Gooch at the North-East County of Essex, has returned to India as captain for the second time, a noteworthy happening that has given him a wonderful opportunity to defend the series he won 2-1 four years ago.
The left-handed opener who has often given the impression of being stoical and fitting into the role of a bulwark is also approaching a terrific feat of leading England utmost times; now he shares this particular honour with Michael Atherton at 54 Tests.
For different reasons, many of his predecessors were high on the popularity chart like M.J.K. Smith, Ted Dexter, Tony Lewis, Tony Greig, Keith Fletcher and David Gower; the last named particularly because of his natural ability to bring elegance in stroke making on the off side.
And just like Greig who brought an imitable style to his commentary and appealed to the Indian fans, Gower is treated with warmth and fondness because of his ability to bring savvy in the commentary box. Cook has appeared to be aloof, prefers to focus on his work which is batting and foiling the Indian spinners in order to achieve glory for his team.
At this point in time though England’s stock has skidded down following the defeat against Bangladesh in the second Test at Mirpur, and especially not able to find answers to the tyro off-spinner Mehedi Hasan, but Cook reminded the doubting Thomas among the press corps on Saturday that his team bounced back to shock Mahendra Singh Dhoni’s team four years ago, after going down in the first Test at Motera, Ahmedabad.
At the conclusion of England’s first media interaction of the tour, Cook was asked if his team can draw inspiration from the 2012 tour and he said: “I remember saying in a press conference after the first Test match when everyone was talking about how you are going to stop India from winning 4-0. We managed to turn it around and win 2-1. So, anything is possible. One thing you can never fault these guys is whatever challenge you have thrown, we have always managed in big games, someone has stood up and played good cricket. That is the challenge we have got here. It is exciting. We are quite heavily the underdogs and that is sometimes a very good platform.’’
Cook went out of the way to boost the morale of his team then. “No doubt( it’s a) big challenge. Anytime you play a No. 1 or a No. 2 side in its backyard, it is a huge task for us and a huge challenge with these kind of guys who have not played a huge amount of cricket in the sub-continent as a group.
“This side has exceeded expectations in the last couple of years in the big series. We played some very good cricket in the big series.
“Last year we went to South Africa and won away from home when they were No. 1 side in the world. Yes, these are different conditions and we know how hard it could be but being underdogs takes a lot of pressure off us.’’
When he goes for the toss at Rajkot on Wednesday (Nov. 9) he would have done so 55 times for England, and Virat Kohli would know that his counterpart would be the first big stumbling block that initially the likes of Mohammad Shami and Umesh Yadav have to deal with.
England captains in India: Douglas Jardine (3) – 1933-34, Nigel Howard (4) – 1951-52, Donald Carr (1) – 1951-52, Ted Dexter (5) – 1961-62, M.J.K. Smith (5) - 1964, Tony Lewis (5) - 1972-73, Tony Greig (5) – 1976-77, Keith Fletcher (6) - 1981-82, David Gower (5) – 1984-85, Graham Gooch (2) - 1993, Mike Brearley (1) - 1980, Andrew Flintoff (3) - 2006, Nasser Hussain (3) - 2001, Kevin Pietersen (2) - 2008, Alec Stewart (1) - 1993 and Alastair Cook (4) - 2012.
