Alastair Cook goes into his 150th Test here in Perth against Australia on Thursday insisting he is working as hard as ever to regain his form and extend the longest Test career in English cricket history.
The former England captain has been accused of looking uninterested here by Kevin Pietersen while Mitchell Johnson has became the latest ex-player to question the talent and commitment of England’s record runscorer.
But Cook, who has failed to make an impact in four innings so far in this Ashes series, hit back here as England began their build-up to a third Test they cannot afford to lose if the Ashes are not going to be conceded before Christmas.
Alastair Cook looked raring to go in the third Test after a nets session at the WACA
Cook is yet to make a score of note in the Ashes series in Australia so far
The ex-England captain’s commitment has been questioned but Cook rejected those claims
Cook pictured heading out to practice during a training session at the WACA in Perth
‘It’s just judged on results isn’t it. The people who are saying that have had no contact time with me, they wouldn’t know the extra nets I’ve been doing behind closed doors. I was with Gary (Palmer) for an hour and a half yesterday morning desperately trying to keep working at my game. That’s probably not a guy who’s given in.’
But Cook, approaching his 33rd birthday on Christmas Day, conceded he does not know whether this will be the last series in an outstanding Test career.
‘To be honest with you I have no idea. And I’ve said that since I gave up the captaincy. Things change incredibly quickly. I was taught a lesson in 2014 with that World Cup. In the morning I was expecting to lead England in that World Cup and in the afternoon I got a phone call saying they didn’t want me to do it.
‘And that was an hour after a meeting when they said they wanted me to, so you end up living on the edge in professional cricket.
‘The results justify the means. If you’re scoring runs all the time your place is guaranteed and if you don’t there are plenty of other people who want your place so that hasn’t changed. That hasn’t changed in my 12 years and it won’t change in the next 20 years. People want your place and it’s up to me to score runs to get those people off my back.’
Cook admitted he had no idea he would still be playing international cricket 12 years after he was flown to India from the West Indies where he had been touring with the A team to make his Test debut.
Cook will make his 150th Test appearance for England in the third Ashes match in Perth
The 32-year-old admitted this Ashes tour could be his last one as an England batsman
Cook said that the England squad need to become ‘a bit smarter’ with off-field behaviour
‘I probably didn’t think I would be here when I turned up in Nagpur all those years ago. It’s obviously a very special moment in terms of a personal milestone. Not many people play 150 Test matches so to do that and do it at the top of the order, I’m quite proud of that. Hopefully there can be a few more after.
‘It’s probably the consecutive games that I’m most proud of to be honest. Apart from one game where I wasn’t very well in that third game in India. I wanted to play but Duncan (Fletcher) saw I was spending more time where I shouldn’t be than in the nets.
‘I was in no fit state to play then but to be backed for as long as I have been in a special thing. Clearly there’s luck involved and the couple of niggles I’ve had have been away from the Test scene. So to play 140 odd consecutive games is special.’
And Cook admitted that England have to get ‘smarter’ after the two embarrassing off-field drink-related incidents that have blighted this tour.
‘The world obviously changed for the England cricket team in September. And it’s probably taken us a couple of months to really realise that. These last two incidents have probably proven that.
With England trailing Australia 2-0, Cook warned his team they have no more room for error
‘I’ve seen the word really down trivial, a misdemeanour at best and a very low key thing but since obviously the Stokes thing in September things have changed for the England cricket team. It’s sad in one sense because, a bit different to football, we’ve always been able to go under the radar a bit and enjoy playing cricket for England and also enjoy seeing the country outside of that.
‘At the moment that’s changed but the one thing I will say about this England side, and it’s even changed since I was captain, but I’ve never seen a side work this hard. Whether we win lose or draw, whether we play well or rubbish, the effort from the guys is unbelievable.
‘There’s a group of men in there, 16 or 17 of them, who are desperate to do well and Trevor Bayliss is cancelling practice sessions after three and a half, four hours. He’s saying “you’ve got to stop now, you’re wasting energy, you’ve got to save it for the Test match.”
Cook says that the England team have been working as hard as he has ever seen
‘That’s just people desperate to do well. So at the moment I don’t think we’re being painted fairly in the media on our culture but clearly there’s been a couple of things that have been brought up and that’s because the world has changed since September and it’s up to us to adjust to that quickly.
‘We can’t afford any more mistakes because we understand the stakeholders, the ECB, sponsors and stuff are trying to encourage kids to play cricket and that’s what we want. We go back to 2013 and we won an Ashes series 3-0 but the public weren’t happy.
‘It was a strange one, certainly as the captain then, but there was a bit of a disconnect between the players and the public and in the last three or four years we’ve made a massive effort to get that connection back and you’ve all seen that. Clearly the last couple of months have damaged that and we’ve got to rebuild that because it’s so important to the players and we’ve got to understand that quickly.’