James Taylor: Alastair Cook's resignation took me by surprise but now Joe Root is ready to lead England

Top skipper: Taylor has picked out plenty of highlights from Cook's spell as skipper
AFP/Getty Images
James Taylor6 February 2017

Alastair Cook's resignation has taken me by surprise — I genuinely thought he’d carry on.

I know the India tour was a really tough one but, wrongly as it turned out, I expected he would be ready to go again after a break but clearly he feels it’s the right time both for himself and for England to step down.

It’s difficult to assess where he ranks in the England captains for me personally as I played with only two and, in the case of Andrew Strauss, that was only for a couple of games.

But the fact he took England for a record 59 Tests pretty much says it all, and there’s no shortage of highlights. There’s the Ashes successes in 2013 and 2015, and probably his greatest achievement of winning a Test series in India in 2012.

Very few sides ever go to India’s backyard and do what England did, and much of that was down to his leadership.

He really grew as a captain over the years. From day one, he had the respect of the dressing room and much of that was down to what he’d done with the bat — but that respect also grew from his leadership.

People need to remember that, at 32, he’s still young and he has a lot of Test cricket ahead of him.

No one knows at this stage but this could even end up being a bonus for England in that it will free him up at the crease, and

we’ll probably see some even greater run-scoring than we’ve seen from him in the past couple of years.

Immaterial of the decision he’s made today — and I’m sure it’s been a very tough one — he has to be one of the first names on the team sheet when England select their starting Test XI. You only have to look at the runs he’s scored and the records he’s broken for that.

There’s a lot of big cricket to play this summer with Test series against South Africa and West Indies, and I look forward to seeing him freed up.

No replacement as captain has been announced but one can only assume that Joe Root will be the man for the job.

He’s an excellent candidate for the role, and that can also be good news for England as it’s a fresh start for a really exciting side.

People should not think there will suddenly be a massive shift in how we approach our cricket as the leadership group will be roughly the same and obviously Alastair will still be a part of that even without the captaincy.

The really big question is how that affects the new captain’s own form.

No one knows until he gives it a go but I think Joe will be absolutely fine in that regard, and I actually think it’ll make him lead from the front even more. It’s an interesting time for England.

Create a FREE account to continue reading

eros

Registration is a free and easy way to support our journalism.

Join our community where you can: comment on stories; sign up to newsletters; enter competitions and access content on our app.

Your email address

Must be at least 6 characters, include an upper and lower case character and a number

You must be at least 18 years old to create an account

* Required fields

Already have an account? SIGN IN

By clicking Create Account you confirm that your data has been entered correctly and you have read and agree to our Terms of use , Cookie policy and Privacy policy .

This site is protected by reCAPTCHA and the Google Privacy Policy and Terms of Service apply.

Thank you for registering

Please refresh the page or navigate to another page on the site to be automatically logged in