DUBAI // Alastair Cook has said changing captain so soon before the World Cup backfired for England after they crashed out meekly from the tournament in Australia and New Zealand.
Cook was sacked as one-day captain ahead of the tournament and replaced by Eoin Morgan following a disappointing tour of Sri Lanka.
He will lead the Marylebone Cricket Club (MCC) team in the Emirates Twenty20 tournament here Friday and the four-day Champion County match in Abu Dhabi starting Sunday.
“I am always going to have a slightly biased view on that,” he said. “I was there for three and a half years, trying to do a job. We got to No 1 in the world, we got to the final of the Champions Trophy, so these are things to be really proud of,” he said.
RELATED
– Alastair Cook: ‘Very unlikely’ Kevin Pietersen will come back into England team
“As any person will tell you, leading your country in a World Cup is a huge honour and one which can never be taken lightly and I was very much looking forward to it.
“I understand the pressure I was under. I wasn’t scoring the runs I should have been scoring, so I understand my position was in jeopardy. I said it at the end of Sri Lanka; if it changed, I had no complaints because I hadn’t scored the runs.
“But I think you saw in Australia the dangers of making such a big decision so close to the tournament. I don’t know what’s going on on that tour, I can only speak from watching from afar, but it did look like the lads were shell-shocked from those first two games,” referring to the defeats to Australia and New Zealand, “and that’s when you need real leadership to help these kids.
“Whether I would have made a difference, I don’t know. But I was fairly confident we would have got out of our group by winning three games in a row.
“As always you back yourself and I would’ve loved to be given the opportunity that was taken away from me. The selectors made that decision because they thought it was best for English cricket.”
arizvi@thenational.ae
Follow us on Twitter @NatSportUAE
