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Legendary England cricketer Alastair Cook is considering to join the team's coaching staff following their one-sided 4-1 defeat to Australia in the Ashes. He feels that he can brin in some "variety" in what is a dejected England camp. The team's results in Test cricket have deteriorated as of recent and they have already lost six out of their opening 10 matches of the ongoing World Test Championship (WTC) cycle.
Notably, Cook is regarded as one of England's greatest openers in Tests and has a total of 12,472 under his name in the format. His batting syle was completely different to that of Brendon McCullum's highly-aggressive 'Bazball' philosophy and he took his time at the crease and ended up scoring big against formidable teams at both home and foreign soil.
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With there being growing doubts over McCullum's future as England's head coach, former cricketer Michael Atherton had recently suggested Cook to join the side's coaching set-up. The latter remarked that he hadn't even thought about coaching before Atherton put his name in the mix.
“When a seed is thrown in your direction it is only natural you start giving it more and more thought. I’ve been going for runs and swims and it does go round in my mind. Now two days after the Test I’m sitting in a Sydney campsite with my family and I honestly don’t know what I want to do, whether I want to stay in the media or go into coaching," Cook wrote in his column for The Times.
“I can’t say that I’m not excited about the possibility of potentially getting involved, but I certainly haven’t had any contact from England. Ultimately if McCullum stays it has got to be up to him who he wants in his backroom team and he has to pick who he thinks are the best coaches around. I do think, though, that in any team you need a variety of different people and there has been too much familiarity in this set-up," he added.
Cook hopes to bring change in England's coaching set-up
Cook feels that McCullum, spin-bowling coach Jeetan Patel, fast-bowling coach Tim Southee all have similar personalities and he can help in bringing a change to that.
“I think with McCullum, the spin coach Jeetan Patel and Tim Southee, who before this series was fast-bowling coach, you’ve got three good blokes but three fairly similar personalities. A bit of variety would help England," Cook further wrote.
McCullum deserate to improve England's results
Meanwhile, McCullum will be hoping that England improve their results in the upcoming white-ball tour of Sri Lanka and the 2026 T20 World Cup. The Three Lions have been drawn in Group C alongside Bangladesh, Italy, Nepal and West Indies. They will begin their campaign with the clash against Nepal on February 8 at the Wankhede stadium in Mumbai.
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