Words matter. These are the best Alastair Cook Quotes, and they’re great for sharing with your friends.
You’re there to score runs. If you don’t do that over a period of time, people will look elsewhere. That hasn’t changed and that’ll never change, whether it’s myself or Jimmy Anderson, you’ve got to play to a certain level to be picked for England or even Essex.
I am much more happy in a country pub with 10 blokes having a pint than going to a night club.
The musical training taught me to focus my mind, before playing in an orchestra taught me how to truly concentrate. If you miss your moment in an orchestra, there is no forgiving.
There’s nothing worse than going out without contributing.
You’re always under pressure, that’s what life is about. That is what playing international cricket or being a professional sportsman is.
Even when every Tom, Dick and Harry was calling for my head, I still felt I could get better at being captain.
When I’m away from cricket I switch off totally. Otherwise I would never be able to keep that same hunger.
I miss being the focal point of the team – the guy everyone looks to for decisions. And guidance.
I’ve got that ruthlessness inside me. All good captains have to be able to say things like that – with good man-management skills.
Jonathan Agnew is a good person to learn off because he’s a brilliant broadcaster and the calmness and clarity with which he does things is a real skill.
As cricketers we fail all the time. You score a hundred every now and again but you get out between nought and 20 far more often. If you get 50, you feel bad because you should have got a hundred. Even if you get a hundred, you feel you should have got 150. So you’re always failing.
Franchise cricket is here to stay because of the money.
The biggest thing was probably a better understanding of the mental side of cricket and also the technical challenges I have in my game. Those two things happened in a very short space of time which changed me as a player.
I think my general view of day-night Test cricket is that there is definitely something there that the ICC can keep looking at because it moves the game forward with timing and allows more people to come and watch.
When you step out of the team environment you think, ‘Wow, I’m England captain and we’ve just won the Ashes.’
It is frustrating when you go all that way, you train, and you just don’t turn up. It does happen. If you play 100-odd Test matches, there’s going to be little periods when you don’t score the runs.
The atmosphere and the first days of Test matches against Australia are incredible.
Alex Hales has tightened up his game from South Africa and learned about Test cricket. It’s great when you see someone who doesn’t quite nail it, but goes away and works away at it, come back a person who understands more about Test cricket.
The beauty of cricket is that there are so many different opinions as to the best way to do something and at times it is easier to see something when you’re not emotionally involved in the game and not responsible for the decision. You can go and have a cup of tea and look at it from a different point of view.
It hurts like hell when you come into a contest and you end up being second best.
I was never going to be the best player the world has ever seen but one thing I can be proud of is that I genuinely believe I have become the best player that I could have become.
You’re only England captain for a very short space of time.
The most important opinions to me are those that belong to the guys in the changing room.
Without sounding arrogant, I achieved a lot more than I thought I would do.
If you play 100-odd Test matches, there’s going to be little periods when you don’t score runs, and I’ve always managed to turn it around.
The captaincy thing is brilliant, and I love it. But I didn’t start off playing cricket to captain England. I wanted to score runs and stuff.
I like being outside and I like hard work.
Being a dad is best thing you can do, it’s very exciting.
Physically and mentally, it’s quite hard. But I’m playing cricket for England. It’s what I dream about doing.
The stats suggest that I’m not a dasher. It doesn’t mean I can’t play the shots, but when you find a method in four-day and Test cricket that works for you, you stick with it.
Many people have helped me during my career and without them and fantastic team-mates and coaches it would not have been possible to achieve all that I have.
Parenthood changes things a lot.
In a normal series you can have a couple of bad games and still win it.
Sport is an entertainment, in one sense. But it’s also a business.
I always found one-day cricket a lot harder. I had to change my game.
I have loved cricket my whole life, from playing in the garden as a child, and will never underestimate how special it is to pull on an England shirt.
When someone says, ‘How long do you see yourself captaining for?’ you don’t really know.
The family farm plays such a big part in my life and I genuinely love going back there. In some ways I’d like to spend every day there, but there would be a big hole in my life if I didn’t stay involved in cricket.
I’m a country boy at heart. I love it when you’ve got your boots on and you’re standing in three inches of cow muck.
The delight you feel in that split second you score your first hundred is so intense it can’t be repeated.
You have to be very pragmatic, because you walk out to bat at the best time to bowl, with a brand new ball, against the best bowlers, who are fresh. And their job is to get you out, so when you fail there’s no point beating yourself up.
You’re either singing on TV or in front of a full cathedral and there’s a bit of pressure there. I know it sounds funny but if you get used to doing it, then performing in front of people playing cricket is the same sort of thing.
No disrespect to county cricket but when you’re playing for England it is the ultimate, it is what has always driven me to push myself above and beyond.
My stubbornness helped me for the first half of my career; I had that real determination to do it my way – I know the best way. That helped me from a 14-year-old to 25 in getting me to where I got to.
When you give up something as big as playing for England there are going to be moments when you miss it.
No matter how much cricket you have played you are always learning.
Nobody walks over me, ever, and no-one will walk over me, ever.
Yes, there are absolutely moments when you’re running out of ideas, and you do genuinely feel sorry for the bowlers when you keep asking them to run in again on a flat wicket, when partnerships get away from you, especially at the tail, which is one of the big differences in the modern game.
I don’t think you have to be this macho man all the time, just because you play sport.
Everyone has technical issues – you have them until you die – but you have to be aware of them in a certain way.
