Cairo, December 29: How careers can turn on small moments. Few batsmen have achieved so much so early as Alastair Cook. Only two players in history have scored more runs at a younger age and no England cricketer comes within a year of having done so.
Yet when he went to the crease yesterday morning at 25 years and three days old, it was as a grizzled veteran of 50 Test matches playing for his future. Failure would not have meant immediate withdrawal of his place as an England opening batsman, but it would have made the scrutiny and the search for an alternative more intense.
For an hour, Cook was painful to watch. He was patient, vigilant and assiduous but there was the unmistakeable stench of fear about his work. He left the ball more often than he played it; South Africa were willing him to try something more adventurous or foolhardy; he resisted.
–Agencies