ALASTAIR COOK has been betrayed by his team.
And they must share the guilt if he quits as England captain.
One after another, batsmen yesterday surrendered their wickets with the sort of rash, reckless and rubbish shots that should leave them ashamed.
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The likes of Moeen Ali and Ben Stokes lobbed catches into the grateful hands of India’s fielders for no apparent reason.
They either crumbled under the pressure or just simply lacked basic cricketing nous. These guys keep telling us how much they want Cook to stay as captain.
Well, they should damn well have helped his cause by making sure England did not hand over the Fifth Test.
Instead, England lost all ten wickets in less than two sessions and succumbed to a crushing, embarrassing defeat by an innings and 75 runs. The series score was 4-0.
The man who has shown most game awareness on this tour is Haseeb Hameed during his partnership with James Anderson in the Third Test. And he is just 19 years old!
This latest raising of the white flag leaves Cook’s future dangling by a thread and it is difficult to mount a persuasive case for him staying.
I have argued consistently in recent weeks that Cook, 31, should remain in charge because his value behind the scenes outweighs his tactical failings.
There is also a belief among the management that Joe Root, who has little captaincy experience and becomes a father in early January, is not ready. So why risk undermining the team’s best batsman?
What is more, selection for this tour has been at least as poor as the captaincy. Back-to-back defeats by an innings — after posting totals of 400 and 477 — inevitably question that logic.
But next winter’s Ashes still seems the best time to pass Root the baton.
Cook’s approach has erred towards the conservative and he lacks animation or the kind of demonstrative on-field persona players respond to. But there is no dissent in the ranks.
No captain would have prevented England losing. It is not Cook’s fault if Moeen chips a catch to mid-on when he is meant to be saving the game.
Captaincy is all about your bowling attack. England’s was not good enough.
As Cook said: “I really don’t want to be disrespectful to Mo or Rash but I’d quite like to captain Ravi Ashwin and Ravi Jadeja on these wickets. Please don’t write that horribly about anyone but I think we could all see India had slightly stronger spinners.”
The truth is Virat Kohli is a poor and negative tactician but hardly anybody mentions it as he had Ashwin and Jadeja. It was the same when Cook had Graeme Swann and Monty Panesar and won here four years ago.
The only question is this: Will England have a better chance of retaining the Ashes next winter with Cook or Root in charge?
I believe the answer is Cook. Even at his moment of greatest dejection, Cook refused to throw his team-mates under a bus.
When invited to criticise Moeen’s dismissal, he said: “You want a headline me blaming Moeen? I never feel let down by the lads.
“I know how hard they work. We’ve shared nine weeks together. Of course it’s frustrating but it happens.
“Blood, sweat and tears went into this tour. But we weren’t good enough to cope with India.”
After conceding 759-7 declared the previous day — the highest total ever made against England — the tourists became the first team to score as many as 477 and lose by an innings.
These have been catastrophic days for Cook and England. Do not forget Cook dropped tyro Indian batsman Karun Nair when he had scored 34.
He went on to make 303 not out.
England needed to bat through the final day to secure a draw and progressed serenely enough to lunch without losing a wicket.
Then Cook was the first victim as a procession formed back to the pavilion. The skipper was one run short of a half-century when he flapped at a ball down the legside and popped it into the hands of leg slip. He was dismissed by Jadeja for the sixth time in the series.
After Keaton Jennings went caught and bowled to Jadeja, Root was given out lbw on review after missing a sweep shot, before Bairstow skied an attempted flick into the legside and was superbly caught by that man Jadeja.
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It meant that both Bairstow and Root missed the chance to overtake Michael Vaughan’s England’s record of 1,482 Test runs in a calendar year in 2002. Root finished with 1,477 and Bairstow 1,470.
Moeen desperately holed out to mid-on for 44 and Stokes attempted some kind of pointless hit through the legside and succeeded only in chipping a catch to mid-wicket.
Liam Dawson was bowled by Amit Mishra’s googly, Adil Rashid got a leading edge to cover and Stuart Broad and Jake Ball were both snaffled by close fielders around the bat.
Cook could go and, if he does, the team-mates who claim to be his supporters will be complicit in his downfall.
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