A tough Cooky

Leading England into Ashes battle takes plenty of 'ticker' and tactical nous. Will Alastair Cook prove up to the job this summer?

NASSER: You may not rave about Cook's great technical nous but his record suggests he's doing pretty well! To go to India and win - especially after going 1-0 down - is a phenomenal effort. The winter tour of New Zealand was a little bit of a blip but they didn't lose the series and they've come back and smashed New Zealand in the home series. Cook has also taken England to a Champions Trophy final. He leads from the front and lets his bat do the talking - he's a better batsman now he's captain - and he's got the team united 100 per cent behind him, which I think is half the battle. When you go into an Ashes series you need a captain who can handle pressure well. The weight that must have been on Michael Vaughan's shoulders in that 2005 series must have been absolutely incredible - just as it was for a Michael Atherton or Nasser Hussain when England were 3-0 down and everyone's criticising you. It's all about how you deal with that pressure and expectation. In my era the expectation was that Australia would come and wallop us and that was generally how it turned out; this summer it will be the other way round. There are plenty of people out there talking about 5-0 whitewashes and you can already see Cook and Andy Flower trying to quell all of that optimism by saying 'this Australian side isn't as bad as everyone is making out'. BOB: Captaincy can adversely affect people but as the lads say that's clearly not the case with Cook. I think his captaincy on the field is still a little bit formulaic and he remains in the shadow of Andy Flower and Andrew Strauss on that score - his is a pretty conservative, safety-first approach - but you always have to remember that five-day cricket is a long road. While we may be encouraging him to enforce the follow-on from the commentary box or place a more attacking field, you can't argue with the results that he's achieved so far. I played under several different characters in the Ashes, starting with the very tough and uncompromising Raymond Illingworth. He was a terrific tactician who was lucky to have cricketers of the quality of Boycott, Snow and Underwood at his disposal. Mike Denness was never really comfortable in the job in 1974/75 - he was a little bit awe-struck with the company he was in - and although I didn't play under him in an Ashes series, Tony Greig was an up-and-at-them character in the Centenary Test. Then there was the cerebral Mike Brearley who took over and came back in 1981. He didn't offer much with the bat but was a great man manager and in 1981 galvanised a side that had lost its way and stimulated them into a famous victory. Beefy had a couple of Tests in 1981; he has a great cricket brain but isn't really cut out to look after other people's needs when he was busy motivating himself. DAVID: I think Cook is learning pretty quickly; he seems to have taken control of the team quite nicely and controlled the dressing room. You are always learning as captain - every day there is a new situation. Some days you cope with that situation well, on others you think 'maybe I should have done something different'. There is something very special about captaining an Ashes series - and winning one - but the basic elements of captaincy don't change. You still need to make the right decisions at the right time in the right way. It's important to be your own man but at the same time it would be foolish not to learn from your previous experience under other captains - and in that Cook has an ideal role-model in Strauss. Captaincy has come to Alastair at a similar age as it came to me and if he's made more notes than I did before I got the job, he's starting in a much better place! Sky Sports Ashes HD will show exclusively live ball-by-ball coverage of the Investec Ashes this summer. Find out more about our coverage and how you can tune in here.