Hail to the Chef

I first became aware of Alastair Cook in the Ashes summer of 2005 when he was named the Young Cricketer of the Year by the cricket writers’ association following some epic performances in the county game, not least taking a double hundred off the touring Australians. The assembled brains on our table, including Mike Brearley, agreed that the boy would go far. And how…

The greatest of current English players, Cook — happily married and impeccably polite — set a perfect example. There were no nightclub brawls, no pedalos, not even any light aircraft. Blessed with incredible stamina and single-mindedness, he knew what worked and kept at it. He wouldn’t clear the bars when he went out to bat, but without his hard work the showier players would not have had a platform to build on. He is still young, the Chef — only 33 — and his mentor Graham Gooch scored a shedload of Test runs after the age of 34.