Former English pacer Steve Harmison believes the experienced English opener Alastair Cook has the ability to give more in international cricket while the former English batsman Graham Gooch is not seeing any improvement on Cook’s batting.
The former English Test and ODI skipper Cook is currently struggling with the form. In this calendar year (2018), Cook has scored only 286 runs in 15 Test innings with the average of just 19.06, the lowest batting average for Cook in a calendar year. He has scored only one 50+ score in this year and that was 70 against Pakistan at Lord’s in May.
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In the ongoing home Test series against India, Cook has scored only 97 runs in 6 innings with the average of just 16.16. In the ongoing Test series, the left-handed opening batsman hasn’t crossed the 30-run mark yet as his best knock was 29 in the first innings of the third Test at Trent Bridge (Nottingham).
Cook has scored his last Test century at Melbourne in the last ‘Boxing Day’ Test match against Australia in the 2017/18 Ashes series, where he scored 244 runs.
Despite being out-of-form for a long time, Harmison has a high faith on the experienced opening batsman who has scored 12,000+ Test runs.
Harmison told Mumbai Mirror, “There is still a long way to go for Alastair Cook. You don’t drop someone like Cook. Alastair Cook retires. I will be very very surprised if he retires at the end of this series. I don’t think the selectors will drop him because England are really struggling from the opening point of view.”
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Harmison has also pointed out that the total English batting line-up is struggling and that has hurt in their recent Test results.
The former English pacer added on it, “Not just Cook, but every single person they pick doesn’t seem to get runs. England batting is still a little bit fragile. We don’t know our best line-up. We don’t know how to get 400 runs and if we don’t do that we are not going to win test matches.”
Meanwhile, former English batsman Graham Gooch is not seeing any improvement on Cook’s batting. He feels the experienced English opener is making the same mistakes again and again.
Gooch said on Cook, “My concern watching him is that I don’t see any improvement in his game. I think he is flatlining a little bit. When you are a cricketer, as a batsman you always need to improve yourself, need to look for new things to drive your forward.
“I don’t know how he’s practicing, I don’t know what he’s doing away from the game, but I’m really concerned when I see him play because he makes similar mistakes and even at 33, 34, there is room to improve yourself.”
