BackAlastair Cook & Michael Clarke: A tale of two captains
One is fighting to keep his job, the other to build a legacywhat the Ashes mean to Alastair Cook and Michael Clarke
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Former Australian cricketer Shane Warne is a regular in the Sky Sports commentary box, and he will be during the entirety of this 2015 Ashes. Throughout this sumptuous five-Test series, which started on 8 July, it can be wagered that his two cents will mostly be about two men—his dear friend, Australian skipper Michael Clarke, and Alastair Cook, the English captain who can never impress him enough.
The legendary leg-spinner is no stranger to this burning rivalry, the oldest in cricket. But his comments from the past—and expectedly from the future—have nothing to do with allegiance, not entirely anyway. While he has been a staunch admirer of Clarke’s aggression as a leader, he has been quite vocal in his criticism of Cook’s sedate approach to captaincy, even in a neutral series. In a contest, best described as a grudge match on steroids, Warne’s vantage point is an apt starting point of this tale of two captains.
Through the past year or so, both Clarke and Cook have charted different paths. For the former, it has been a battle with injuries, one he ultimately won while lifting the One Day International (ODI) ICC World Cup trophy in Melbourne, Australia, in March. For the latter, it has been a never-ending fight for survival.
Cook’s troubles began when the last Ashes series ended, a 5-0 blanking down under (2013-14). The English side that once rose to No.1 in Tests slowly came apart, with coach Andy Flower, Graeme Swann and Jonathan Trott leaving the scene as a consequence. One man though was forced towards the exit. Kevin Pietersen was the scapegoat for that embarrassing loss, never to play for England again.
That saga haunted Cook—and his team—for long, and not just in Test cricket. A personal loss of form combined with a series lost to Sri Lanka at home last summer meant Cook was on the chopping block. Then India went ahead in their five-Test match encounter last year, only for the results to be reversed in the latter half of that series. A dropped catch at Southampton allowed the beleaguered skipper enough breathing space to return to form, with runs and three consecutive wins.
But England’s woes in the 2015 ICC Cricket World Cup build-up meant he was fired from the ODI captaincy with the tournament on the horizon. And they were a team in strife during those six weeks in March, exiting in the group stage after losing to Bangladesh in a must-win encounter. Drawn Test series against West Indies, and New Zealand at home afterwards haven’t helped build momentum.
“Come August, I will sit down with everyone, with the coach, and we will plot a path forward, or we will see. But just before an Ashes series is not the right time to talk," Cook said at a preparatory camp two weeks before Australia landed in England.
“Ever since we lost the Ashes 5-0 in Australia, I have taken every series as an individual event," he added, indicating a frazzled mind before the all-important series.
In sharp contrast, Clarke rode high on that 5-0 win at home, with Australia going on to beat South Africa in their den thereafter. Never mind a blip against Pakistan, India were easy meat in home conditions. From the loss of his best friend Phil Hughes in November to fighting a career-threatening back injury to lifting the 2015 World Cup, Clarke elevated himself to national hero this past summer in Australia. But history still looms large on his team’s present aspirations though: the shadow of three successive Ashes defeats in England—2-1 series losses in 2005 and 2009 under Ricky Ponting, and then a 3-0 loss in 2013 under his captaincy.
“Michael scored two hundreds in the 5-0 Ashes whitewash of 2006-07, but that team started to break up not long afterwards and the one he inherited as captain after we had lost the 2010-11 Ashes was not in a good place," Warne wrote in The Sunday Times in the build-up to the first Test. “You learn most about captains and players during the tough times and I think that period from 2011 until the end of the 2013 Ashes defeat (in England) showed him at his very best."
Indeed, Clarke’s role has grown each time he has travelled to England—from a young batsman to an out-of-form old-timer to the skipper of a divided dressing room. This time around he comes on the back of an aggressive streak that called out the opposition in Brisbane, Australia, in 2013 with “get ready for a broken fucken arm" as Mitchell Johnson stood atop his bowling run-up. That was perhaps the klaxon for a shift in the Australian dressing room, moving on finally from their long-running transition period.
It is not to say that they are not standing on the verge of their next phase-shift. Clarke’s injury through three of the four Tests against India meant that Australian cricket could peek into the future—and Steve Smith looked golden every time he took the field. Recently, in West Indies, Smith reaffirmed that his inspiring run-scoring back home was no fluke, climbing atop the ICC ranking charts. He provides the stable footing on which Clarke will attempt to reverse his side’s poor run in England, seemingly his last attempt to do so.
Cook, meanwhile, will play on with a perturbed mind. While he was away from the ODI scene, a new coach came in. Trevor Bayliss brought in the chutzpah he has displayed often in his previous coaching stints to the recently concluded New Zealand ODI series, wherein an attacking English side broke its own norms with a 3-2 win. He will look forward to playing the same brand of cricket in the Ashes, meeting Australian fire with fire. In all of this, could Cook be left behind, he of the caution-first approach?
“I am not sure if it is in Cook’s DNA to be adventurous," said all-rounder Shane Watson in the lead-up to the first Test, only the first of the many shots to be fired in this high-stakes English summer.
Chetan Narula is the author of Skipper: A Definitive Account of India’s Greatest Captains.
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