Free The Shorter Wisden 2013 by Co., John Wisden

filled with uncharitable thoughts of a hospital pass from a man who played fly-half at university, Cook did well not to drop the ball.
    Things were about to get worse. After flunking their World Twenty20 defence in Sri Lanka (though without Cook), England were thrashed in the First Test at Ahmedabad, leaving them one defeat away
from matching the record eight they had suffered in 1984, 1986 and 1993, an era when English summers were nothing without a fiasco or three. Exasperatingly, they were being made to look fools by
Asia’s spinners yet again. Would someone please change the record? Did anyone even know how?
    Even now, the answers seem implausible. In a heady fortnight, England won at Mumbai, then Kolkata. Soon, Christmas was coming early: on December 17, in a wood-panelled conference room at the
Vidarbha Cricket Association Stadium in Nagpur, Cook could finally relax. A turgid draw had secured a 2–1 win, instantly established his authority and drawn some sort of line under the
year’s traumas. Crisis management wasn’t supposed to be this straightforward.
    England have won Test series from unpromising positions before: the Ashes of 1954-55, 1981 and 2005; India in 1984-85 and Sri Lanka in 2000-01. But there may never have been a set of
circumstances so loaded in the opposition’s favour. Others would have battened down the hatches and waited for spring. Cook came out fighting, bloody-minded but with a clarity of thought,
taking on India’s slow bowlers with a more open stance, lighter footwork and straighter hitting. Only freak occurrences could stop him: a first-over stumping, a first-ever run-out, a pair of
umpiring gaffes.
    In the course of three hundreds, a trio to rank with any by an England cricketer, he grew into a leader of men – first equalling, then breaking, the national record of 22 centuries in
Tests, which seemed to have stood since biblical times. Throw in the 2010-11 Ashes, and he had now scored 1,328 runs at an average of 102, with six hundreds, in England’s two most significant
away wins of the modern era. For once, Bradmanesque felt not like a cliché, but the only adjective up to the job.
    As with all good captains, Cook coaxed and cajoled. Matt Prior fed off his defiance during the follow-on at Ahmedabad. At Mumbai, Pietersen – now cock of the walk, not elephant in the room
– compiled his own third hall-of-fame innings of the year, after Colombo and Headingley. Monty Panesar, mistakenly omitted at first, settled into a mesmeric groove. James Anderson and Steven
Finn found reverse swing in Kolkata. Graeme Swann chipped away, troubling not merely left-handers. By the time Jonathan Trott and Ian Bell were grinding out hundreds at Nagpur, England had
rediscovered the joys of team spirit.
    Victory in India was as stirring as it was unexpected, for earlier in the year there had been a damning hint of the malaise that struck after 2005. By their own admission, England were
complacent at the start of 2012 in the UAE against Pakistan. And in the First Test against Sri Lanka at Galle in March, they tested out Einstein’s definition of insanity, sweeping straight
balls again and again while appearing to expect a different result. After brushing aside West Indies in the first part of the summer, they were then outclassed by South Africa, who spent the year
establishing themselves as the world’s best Test team, and the start of 2013 confirming it.
    The defeat at Lord’s prompted Strauss to suggest that England preferred being “hunter” rather than “hunted”, which said a lot about the national sporting psyche.
But they had been seduced by talk of a legacy: committing the oldest crime in cricket’s book, they took their eye off the ball. Cook demanded his players refocus, and so joined Douglas
Jardine, Tony Greig and David Gower as the only England captains to win a Test series in India. The London Olympics didn’t hand out gold medals for pleasant surprises but, in the