Video: Cook dismisses criticism of his captaincy

England captain Alastair Cook defends himself following criticism of his leadership by pointing to impressive winning record on Tuesday (20th August) ahead of fifth Ashes Test at the Oval in London, England.

Alastair Cook
“I think as an England captain, or a captain of any international side, (criticism) has to be water off a duck’s back. It has to be because quite rightly everyone has an opinion about how you do things. I think that’s one of the beauties of cricket, that you’ve all got different opinions about it and it would be wrong to all think the same. I can only go with what’s true to what I believe in because if I pretend to be someone else, I’m not being true to myself and all that authenticity you lose as a leader if you try and do that. So I’ve got to be true to myself. I can only say about the results we’ve managed to achieve in the last year we’ve won in India, we beat New Zealand and we’ve won the Ashes. They are three quite big series and I’m quite proud of that as a captain.”

Alastair Cook
“I have given my batting just as much attention as I would do if I wasn’t captain so that’s certainly not the reason that I haven’t scored the runs I would like to have done in this series. Sometimes it’s the natural ebb and flow of form. Things haven’t been quite as good this summer as they have been for the last couple of years. All I can do is know that my record suggests I will score runs and I’ve done that in the past. I’m hammering my basics. I’m doing the good stuff so it’s just a matter of time hopefully before it turns and I get a little bit of luck which you always need at the top of the order and get that score. You can change a series very quickly can’t you. I’ve had three 50s and if you turn two of those into 100s, it changes your output in the series. One of my main strengths as a batter is that normally when I get in, I do do that so it hasn’t been as good as I would have liked, but I certainly feel that I’ve contributed as well.”