England must strike now, but criticism will follow if they look undercooked in first Ashes Test against Australia in Perth - Alastair Cook Column

Sir Alastair Cook, in his first Ashes column for TNT Sports, says England have a "massive advantage" for the first Test in Perth, but that they must make it count by "striking now". The ex-England skipper also gave his take on Ben Stokes' "has-beens" comment, and shared his advice to England's batters for thriving against pace and bounce. Watch and stream the Ashes on TNT Sports and discovery+.

Ashes Flashback: Cook serves up series to remember

Video credit: TNT Sports

Ex-England captain Sir Alastair Cook will be providing his insight and analysis for TNT Sports throughout the 2025/6 NRMA Insurance men's Ashes. Here is his first column ahead of the first Test in Perth, in which he gives his take on Ben Stokes' "has-beens" comment, and why the tourists could end up coming in for criticism. Watch every ball of the Ashes live on TNT Sports and discovery+.

England must strike now

Ashes 2025

Exclusive: Root on elusive Australia century - 'This tour is not about me'

15 hours ago

Josh Hazlewood missing the first Ashes Test is a massive blow for Australia.

You talk about the 'Fab Four' of Mitchell Starc, Hazlewood, Pat Cummins, and Nathan Lyon, they are arguably up there with the best bowling quartets in history. There are very few to rival them and they've been such a heavy part of Australia's success.

For England to win the Ashes, they will need a few things to go their way, and certainly, leading into the first game, a couple of things have gone their way, like Cummins obviously missing the first game and Hazlewood being out, we're not sure for how long.

It's a massive advantage for England. If you're an Australian, it's a worry, but if you go back to that last 2021/22 Ashes series - Hazlewood played one game and didn't play the other four, and Cummins missed one for Covid.

So it's not as if they haven't coped without him [Hazlewood] before, but just as a purely confidence thing, England know that the bowlers coming in are good, but they're not going to be of the same quality and experience of Hazlewood, so it's an opportunity for England.

It doesn't guarantee anything, unfortunately, but a week ago you're looking at a strong Australian bowling line-up minus Cummins.

Now you take another one out of there, plus you've got a guy on debut - you probably think Brendan Doggett will play. He's been around the block but he certainly doesn't have the experience or the class of Hazlewood.

So England have got this opportunity. In two games' time, it could be back to Cummins, Hazelwood, and they're fully fit again, so this is why England have to strike now.

‘Timing’s everything’ – Cook on how England can exploit Australia’s cracks

Video credit: TNT Sports

Impossible to rid England of pressure

What Glenn McGrath says about 'Bazball' - that the "very best players thrive under pressure" - is a fair point.

I think what England have tried to do over the last three or four years is relieve as much of that pressure that is possible.

It's impossible to rid England of pressure. The feelings that England are going to feel the day before the first Test, on the morning of the first Test - it doesn't matter whether you're playing Bazball or any other name you want to call cricket - your levels of anxiety, excitement and nervousness are going to be so heightened. It's such a unique feeling, that first day of an Ashes.

I've played in a fair few of them, and it's really hard to put into words, because you try and say it’s just another game - and you quickly realise it is just another game of cricket once you get into the series - but that first morning is so different.

So it doesn't matter what you're playing, it doesn't matter what Brendan McCullum has tried to do. He's just trying to lessen the pressure. It's impossible to get rid of, because that's what playing under the highest pressure is, at the highest level, where the stakes mean so much, where the hype is huge. That brings the pressure, that brings the scrutiny. I think they've just tried to release some of that burden.

Can Bazball work down under? Starc says England have 'gone back on their word'

Video credit: TNT Sports

Criticism will follow if England look undercooked

I haven't listened to the whole of Ben Stokes' interview when he referenced the "has-beens" in relation to England's limited preparation, but I know him pretty well, and he's actually really respectful of ex-players and the past.

So whether it was a bit of a moment in the press conference - we've all been there - where we say a sentence, and we think, 'why have I just said that, what's just come out of my mouth?'

Remember how many interviews you do as England captain, you could say everything you want to say, and then something just gets you a little bit, and you say something you shouldn't do, and it becomes a headline.

I understand what he's trying to say; it's like 'this is how we're going to operate. This is how me, Rob Key, and Brendon McCullum decided to operate.'

And because this approach is different, because it hasn't been tried before, people are going to have their say on it.

They will open themselves up to criticism if it doesn't work. Preparation is important, but it's not the be-all and end-all. We prepared in the same way for the 2013/14 Ashes as we did for the 2010/11 series: three first-class games, against strong opposition, try to take them as seriously as you could, try and win - and one, we won the series, and the other we lost 5-0.

If England had played three warm-up games, it doesn't mean they would have definitely won this series; they might not have been more prepared.

So, my argument of this is, they've chosen to do it, and they'll accept that it is purely about results. If it goes wrong, they are going to get criticised for the way they've built up, especially if they look short of a gallop in the first Test.

They'll say, 'well, we can't do any different'. Well, you can always try and do something different if you wanted to. They didn't have to take their full-strength side to New Zealand for the white-ball tour, they could have asked the ECB to move that series, for example.

So they've chosen this way. They can't use the schedule as much. Yes, it has changed, the amount of franchise cricket that's played, and trying to get the opposition that you want is not necessarily easy. I think in 2021/22 when they played a game against an Australian side, it didn't work that well. They played against some pretty average players, they were saying.

So, I understand why they tried to do it this way, but I believe in general that all boards have a kind of unwritten rule that if they want to play a warm-up game against an Australia A or England A and vice versa, then I think we should, because it's good for the development of both sets of young players.

Why is it called 'The Ashes'? Cricket's oldest rivalry explained

Video credit: TNT Sports

My advice for batting in Australia

Playing short-pitched bowling was one of my strengths. If you bowled full, I normally nicked it or kicked it.

It was how I set up, I had high hands in my set-up and naturally I didn't have to change it, so that made it easy to start with.

But - and this is really 'un-Bazball' - it's about leaving well in Australia on those wickets. How much relevance this actually has now, I don't know. We played on very flat wickets in Australia. All the times I played, they were good wickets to bat on, with the Kookaburra ball, which, after the first 10 overs, was good to bat on. It did reverse a little bit, spun later on in the games, but for the first three or four days, it was an absolutely belter to bat on. Whereas now, in the last couple of years, the runs have come down a lot.

From my experience, it's about leaving the cricket ball and getting the bowlers into their second, third, fourth, fifth spells, and you get rewarded for that so much in Australia, because the pitches are so hard and true. And when you got in, you just had to cash in. Bowling attacks didn't often go 'bang, bang, bang' very often.

Obviously, Mitchell Johnson blew the tail away in 2013/14, but generally the top order, even if you're 150 for 5, it wasn't normally a series of quick wickets, because people got themselves in okay.

The reason we won in 2010/11, whether it's to do with taking 20 wickets or not, was that we got big runs on the board. Seventies had to become 150s, and it was possible to do it, because the wickets were so true.

But if it's nipping around and suddenly 280 is a good score, things are very different. The way that England will play - run towards the danger, play aggressively - will be very different to the pitches I played on in 2010/11.

Pope hits classy century in Ashes warm-up match

Video credit: TNT Sports

Why I didn't engage in verbals

I didn't tend to engage in much sledging, as I wasn't quick-witted enough to say anything funny back, to put the other guy back in his place.

Also, as a batter, you always felt you had nothing to win. You could hit five fours in a row, sledge the bowler, and then the sixth ball, he gets you out, and you're done. You might have won a couple of battles but you lost the war.

I felt it certainly wasn't in my character, because I feared getting out and looking pretty stupid. But some people, it really inspired them how to bat and get in that contest.

And if they got out at the end they didn't mind, as long as they'd taken that bowler down for runs or whatever. So it's however you deal with it.

For me, I tried to go on my own merry way, try to stay in my own little bubble, and not get drawn into the verbal battle. Even if a fast bowler was bowling quickly at me, staring me down, or trying to kind of intimidate me that way, I would turn my back on it.

That's very different to, say, Mike Atherton, who said, 'always stare the bowler down, because eventually he's the one who has to give way'. He has to go and turn back to his mark.

I tried it a couple of times when I was younger, and it just felt so unnatural to me to do it. It just wasn't my thing. That doesn't mean I wasn't fired up to score runs, and determined. I just didn't need that to get me into the battle.

Watch: Anderson lifts lid on THAT Ashes moment with Johnson

Video credit: TNT Sports

Australia remains the ultimate challenge

This time going out to Australia will be very different for me as a pundit for TNT Sports.

I remember going out to Australia as a player and loving it. I did genuinely love it, but I had some real tough times out there. It's a tough place to go and play, and we haven't won many games out there.

But it's the ultimate challenge of a cricketer to go and play there. You say it about every tour, but playing away from home is so special. The support is going to be incredible.

Since retiring, one of the other things I wanted to do was sit at Lord's and be in the Long Room when the England players walk through on the first day of an Ashes, just because I've experienced that a couple of times, but you couldn't take it in, because you are so focused on batting or captaining or playing.

You don't appreciate the moment. These next five days of the first Test in Perth, I will be appreciating the surroundings of the cricket- not that it feels such a long time ago that I did play - but I'll look back and go, 'how lucky I was to experience that as a player'.

You don't realise it at the time, but you certainly do now you've stopped playing.

Watch and stream every ball of the 2025/26 NRMA Insurance men's Ashes live on TNT Sports and discovery+

Ashes 2025

Why you need to set your alarm to watch the first Ashes Test on TNT Sports

16 hours ago

Ashes 2025

Your guide to the 2025/26 Ashes

18 hours ago

Thoughts?