Alastair Cook was on the verge of quitting as Engand captain: Paul Downton

A dejected Alastair Cook after England’s 1-0 series loss to Sri Lanka

England cricket’s managing director Paul Downton has revealed that Alastair Cook was on the verge of resigning from captaincy during the 2^nd Test against Sri Lanka at Headingley in june, which the visitors won to take the series 1-0.

Cook’s tactics on the 4th day of that Test match were baffling as they completely stopped trying to dismiss Angelo Mathews when he was batting with the lower order, especially Rangana Herath. Their strategy of attacking only Herath by getting him on strike as often as they could backfired badly with the two batsmen putting on a match-winning partnership of 149 for the 8th wicket.

“He was very low that night and he went to his [hotel] room wondering, ‘Do I really need this?’ But he woke up the next morning and said ‘I am in’,” Downton said in an interview with BBC’s Test Match Special. “That was all I wanted to hear, that he was committed to this job.”

Downton added that once Cook showed his commitment towards continuing in the job, there was no chance of him being sacked after the Lord’s defeat to India despite the loud calls from pundits demanding Cook’s removal.

What had made matters worse for Cook is his own batting form till the Lord’s Test against India, having scored just 638 runs from 14 matches at an average of 23.62 with no hundred in that time period. While he is yet to get the monkey off his back by scoring a hundred, there has been a mini-revival in his batting form since the 3rd Test against India at Edgbaston.

He did enjoy a slice of luck as he was dropped on 15 at 3rd slip by Ravindra Jadeja in the 1st innings at Edgbaston, but he made the most of it as he made 95 in that innings and followed it up with 70* in the 2nd innings.

While he has seemed a lot more confident in his demeanour on the field as a result, the fact that the rest of the players have backed him up with two impressive performances on the board back-to-back, which has given England a 2-1 lead in the series, hasn’t done him any harm either.