That is the end result of his technical problem yeah.

Athers put it far better than I could:

"Cook's final movement is happening too late. His third trigger, the final movement forward of his front foot, is happening as the ball is already on its downward trajectory. It means that when this movement is complete, the ball is already three quarters of the way down to Cook, giving him no time to move again.

The upshot is a lot of movement before the ball is bowled and not much afterwards. That is why, in his second innings at Edgbaston, he was stuck on the crease when he should have been forward and why he was beaten for pace. That the ball kept low was an illusion created by the batsman's lack of footwork."

Basically he plants his front foot after the ball has been released, giving him no time to play the delivery on it's merit. He can therefore go neither forward nor back cos he's committed his feet already.

Massive knock for him coming up in this test - the biggest of his career so far. I have to say I have no confidence in him though.

Totally agree Cook has got to stand up and be counted today; the team which has basically carried him all summer now desperately needs runs from him unfortunately I'm not confident he will get them either. Hopefully I'm wrong!!

He has also scored three centuries since Strauss last did.


Not going to Bangladesh has worked wonders for Strauss

Make that four centuries now Crouchy

I don't want to get side-tracked into the vice captaincy issue, as it might cool my ardor to storm Essex and toss Cook out of the England side. He is consistently failing to score runs or build a platform for the batsmen lower down the order. I'd drop him like a shot and give Carberry/Trott/Key/whoever a trial before the summer ends.

I reject the notion that you need a vice captain for a stable and orderly transition. Strauss is a superb captain and his transition was about as stable and orderly as a blancmange.

Cook OUT!