Alastair Cook resigned as England's Test captain on Tuesday - but he should have gone after they lost the fourth Test and the series against India in Mumbai, and made way for his vice-captain Joe Root. As it is, Root will have only four months from his first Test in charge in July until the biggest assignment in cricket - as the England Test captain in Australia.
Long had Cook dreamed of returning to Australia, as captain, and avenging the 5-0 defeat of 2013-14. But England are more likely to win the 2017-18 edition now that Cook has returned to the ranks, where he will be able to concentrate on his batting and on nurturing the two debutants who did brilliantly in India, Haseeb Hameed and Keaton Jennings.
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Alastair Cook resigns as England captain
Following Alastair Cook's resignation as England captain, here are the highs and the lows of Cook's tenure as captain.
If the three of them can give England the solidity they never found in 2016, and Root excels in his favoured position of No.4, Cook could yet have his revenge as a player.
He deserves it too. No England captain has been more polite and courteous to his players and all concerned. He has never descended to scapegoating and blaming others. England have had better captains, but no more decent human being as captain.
Cook's legacy is a kinder and more considerate dressing room than the one he took over; and he will be remembered as a fine England captain so long as Plan A worked. When there were plenty of runs on the board, he kept a steady hand on the tiller, did the obvious things well, and skippered a happy crew.
His four biggest achievements - the series win in India in late 2012, the two Ashes victories in England in 2013 and 2015, and England's 2-1 win in South Africa last winter - were the fruits of this formula. Runs on the board, turn the ball over to James Anderson and Stuart Broad, or Graeme Swann and Monty Panesar in India, and pressurise the opposition into mistakes: Plan A, for Alastair, worked.
Cook was at his very best when leading by personal example. He, and he alone, set up England's first Test series win in India for 28 years by making a big hundred in the first Test in Ahmedabad, while the rest of his players were overwhelmed by unfamiliar conditions. As the best captains do, Ricky Ponting being the most famous example, Cook made runs in the opening Test - and everything then fell into place.
But no marriage is one long honeymoon. Cook's captaincy was to follow the pattern established by his predecessors: Mike Atherton, Nasser Hussain, Michael Vaughan and Andrew Strauss all burnt brightly as batsmen when they took over the England Test captaincy, only to peter out gradually as they were worn down by the never-ending demands of players and coaches, supporters and media.
![Going back to basics: By stepping down, Cook [pictured in 2006] can refocus on his batting and fielding.](/web/20170207123011im_/http://www.smh.com.au/content/dam/images/g/u/6/v/y/x/image.related.articleLeadwide.620x349.gu6xsu.png/1486428676230.jpg)
Cook scored three big centuries in his first three Tests in charge (or five hundreds in his first five Tests if you count the tour of Bangladesh in 2010 when Strauss rested and he stood in).
In his first 17 innings as official captain, spread over three series, Cook hit five centuries and averaged 60. The world's worst strategist and tactician can get away without criticism if he churns out runs in industrial, match-winning quantities. But the runs, having gushed, dried up.
Starting with the Ashes series of 2013, Cook has subsequently made five centuries in all, averaging 41; and his last hundred, if it is not too churlish to note, came when it was needed least, in the second innings at Rajkot, when England were setting up a second-innings declaration. Otherwise Cook has not reached 60 since the Oval Test of last season; and he also needs to concentrate on his slip-catching again as he dropped half of his six chances in India.
With his own output declining in the course of 2016, and England's selectors getting nowhere in finding middle-order batsmen to partner him and Root, and no more large totals to play with, Cook was thrown more and more on to Plan B - only there did not seem to be one, other than to spread defensive fields, share the bowling round, and wait patiently, then resignedly.
Last autumn his record as captain declined from 26 wins and 17 losses, which was highly creditable, to 26-22 by the end of the tour of India.
By then it was apparent that Cook had endured enough; and, of his modern predecessors, only Mike Atherton has done the job so long. By the end of the Mumbai and Chennai Tests England were more rudderless in the field than at any time since the introduction of central contracts and the academy.
When left-arm spinner Liam Dawson made his debut in Chennai, Cook walked resignedly to short fine leg and let the debutant get on with bowling at India's finest. As a captain, Cook did not have the flair and imagination to bring the best out of his players when no longer leading by example.
Inflexible too. In the last two Tests, India scored more than 600. It made no sense to make Moeen Ali bat a second time at No.4, and Jonny Bairstow at five, after bowling and keeping wicket for two days when Jos Buttler was relatively fresh. But the batting order was not changed; in the second innings of both Tests Buttler was left stranded on six not out, a complete waste.
The Telegraph, London
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