England collapse hands India advantage after Alastair Cook hit half century in final Test
Retiring opener was bowled for 71 to spark yet another crumble from the English batsmen
AROUND a million people went to work on the London Underground in yesterday’s morning rush hour.
On reaching their offices, most will have been lucky to receive so much as a ‘good journey in? Fancy a cup of tea?’
None of them, other than Alastair Cook, were afforded a standing ovation from 24,000 people, a guard of honour from the best Test team in the world and a handshake from the darling of all India Virat Kohli.
True to his unassuming everyman status, Cook travelled by Tube from England’s hotel near Tower Hill, across the river to The Oval, accompanied by opening partner Keaton Jennings.
This is how sportsmen of the old school used to travel, Denis Compton alighting at St John’s Wood for Lord’s and Jimmy Greaves at Fulham Broadway for Stamford Bridge.
And fittingly Cook, in his 161st and final Test match, then treated a full house to more than four hours of Pathe newsreel cricket.
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When he was dismissed, shortly after tea, playing on to Jasprit Bumrah for a 190-ball innings of 71, England were 133-2 with a throwback run-rate of just 2.09 per over. Cook is the tortoise who has out-stayed so many hares.
He has more caps, more runs and more centuries than any other Englishman. And he hasn’t achieved all that by acting like a song-and-dance man.
This innings, probably his penultimate in Test cricket, and possibly even his last, was vintage Cook.
Here was the fuss-free grinderman who has been a fixture at the top of the England batting order for a dozen years.
And, as if we didn’t realise how keenly England will miss Cook’s stoicism, they were four-down within ten minutes of his dismissal — Joe Root and Jonny Bairstow both out for nought — and had subsided to 198-7 by the close.
For so long, a packed house had willed Cook towards three figures. But they had to settle for the first half-century by any opening batsman in this curious series, already secured by an England side 3-1 up.
Throughout the day, the big screens and the broadcasts had been teeming with tributes for the former England captain.
Yet old colleagues and fellow greats weren’t exactly gushing in the way they would normally be when a leading sportsman retires from the international arena.
Take Andrew Strauss, who shared well over 100 opening partnerships with Cook, the most enduring double act in English cricketing history.
“He was a great concentrator,” said Strauss, who then paused as if unsure what to say next. “He didn’t chat much in the middle.”
Tick followed tock followed tick followed tock followed tick.
Many of Cook’s fellow Friday-morning strap-hangers might have appreciated such peace and quiet in their own workplaces.
Had he ended up in a normal job, Cook would never have been the bantering ‘office character’ sort.
Yesterday, as so often before, Cook operated in a trance-like calm, chugging along to the low hum of thousands chattering away, sipping beer and barely noticing him.
Early in his innings, Cook carved Bumrah through point for four and pulled him to the boundary in successive deliveries.
Yet anyone who imagined Cook going out with a crash-bang-wallop has obviously not been paying attention since 2006.
After that we got a customary display of patience. The type which ought to earn a sainthood. Cook, hunched over his bat, nurdling and churning, stonewalling and cementing against a high-quality attack.
He was dropped at slip by Ajinkya Rahane off Ishant Sharma on 37 and survived an lbw review from the same bowler on 67.
But he reached a Test-match 50 for a staggering 89th time by straight-driving Mohammed Shami for two. And by tea, this famous old place had fallen under that most gripping spell, the anticipation of impending romance.
A century, a perfect curtain-call for England’s leading man...
But then came Bumrah with one that kept a little low, and Cook could only deflect it into his stumps.
He acknowledged another standing ovation but you could tell he had been imagining a 33rd Test century.
Bumrah trapped Root three balls later and Sharma had Bairstow edging behind the following over as the Fifth Test swung suddenly and violently in India’s favour.
Ben Stokes did not last long, leg-before to Ravindra Jadeja. Moeen Ali nicked off to Sharma after reaching his half-century and Sam Curran bagged the day’s third duck.
But this day had centred on Cook — the bloke who arrived here by Tube and transported all back several years, as if by TARDIS.
Mind the gap? The hole at the top of the England order is going to be a bloody great chasm.
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