Top 105 Quotes & Sayings by Alastair Cook
Explore popular quotes and sayings by an English athlete Alastair Cook.
Last updated on December 3, 2024.
I always found one-day cricket a lot harder. I had to change my game.
Just because you're made England captain, it doesn't mean that you suddenly know everything about captaincy.
It hurts like hell when you come into a contest and you end up being second best.
Throughout my career I have done it my way and used my stubborn streak. I thought the best way to captain was to shut out all the noise - I did it with my batting and thought 'that has served me well, so why change it?'
From a purely selfish, batting point of view, I couldn't bat any better than the 2010-11 Ashes and then in India in 2012. That was as good as I could play.
Jonathan Agnew is a good person to learn off because he's a brilliant broadcaster and the calmness and clarity with which he does things is a real skill.
I miss being the focal point of the team - the guy everyone looks to for decisions. And guidance.
Being a dad is best thing you can do, it's very exciting.
I like being outside and I like hard work.
The India series wasn't the only reason I retired. It was the culmination of 18 months where things had probably changed in my life.
There's nothing worse than going out without contributing.
The beauty of cricket is that there are so many different opinions as to the best way to do something and at times it is easier to see something when you're not emotionally involved in the game and not responsible for the decision. You can go and have a cup of tea and look at it from a different point of view.
In a normal series you can have a couple of bad games and still win it.
It's quite nice to switch off and not see anything to do with cricket.
I've got that ruthlessness inside me. All good captains have to be able to say things like that - with good man-management skills.
Physically and mentally, it's quite hard. But I'm playing cricket for England. It's what I dream about doing.
You're always under pressure, that's what life is about. That is what playing international cricket or being a professional sportsman is.
Without sounding arrogant, I achieved a lot more than I thought I would do.
I have loved cricket my whole life, from playing in the garden as a child, and will never underestimate how special it is to pull on an England shirt.
Sport is an entertainment, in one sense. But it's also a business.
Parenthood changes things a lot.
The captaincy thing is brilliant, and I love it. But I didn't start off playing cricket to captain England. I wanted to score runs and stuff.
Franchise cricket is here to stay because of the money.
If you play 100-odd Test matches, there's going to be little periods when you don't score runs, and I've always managed to turn it around.
When you give up something as big as playing for England there are going to be moments when you miss it.
Nobody walks over me, ever, and no-one will walk over me, ever.
When I was made captain, one of my things was that whatever happens in those four years, you don't want to make major changes just before a World Cup. We'd done it before, and it never worked.
In international cricket you have to thrive on the big stage, you have to deal with the media and the pressure.
If someone taps me on the shoulder and tells me they don't want me to open the batting for England, it's going to hurt.
People like Mo Ali, Jos Buttler, Ben Stokes, Joe Root, they are looking to take attack to the opposition and that's when they play their best.
The delight you feel in that split second you score your first hundred is so intense it can't be repeated.
As cricketers we fail all the time. You score a hundred every now and again but you get out between nought and 20 far more often. If you get 50, you feel bad because you should have got a hundred. Even if you get a hundred, you feel you should have got 150. So you're always failing.
I think I come back to Essex and fit in pretty well but until you get there you don't know.
I was never going to be the best player the world has ever seen but one thing I can be proud of is that I genuinely believe I have become the best player that I could have become.
All I ever wanted to do was play cricket for England and be successful.
I have achieved more than I could have ever imagined and feel very privileged to have played for such a long time alongside some of the greats of the English game.
When you're playing, every ball seems like the biggest event. When you're sitting back, you can see the overall picture better.
I think a lot when I'm on my own - and much of it is about cricket.
If I was a second-team player, I probably would have gone to uni.
It's very hard to reflect properly when you're still playing but the hundreds one - when I got my 23rd in Kolkata - felt the most special because it broke a benchmark that had stood for a very long time. It felt good to do something no Englishman has done before.
You have to be very pragmatic, because you walk out to bat at the best time to bowl, with a brand new ball, against the best bowlers, who are fresh. And their job is to get you out, so when you fail there's no point beating yourself up.
You want to score runs at the highest average you can. That's what motivates you to keep driving the standards.
Even when every Tom, Dick and Harry was calling for my head, I still felt I could get better at being captain.
I do feel sorry for my younger brother, he used to field a lot.
I'm a country boy at heart. I love it when you've got your boots on and you're standing in three inches of cow muck.
Am I happiest on the farm or out in the middle? I am a cricketer, but the farm is a very special place and I absolutely love being in the countryside and getting away from the bubble. I like to think I'm a farmer, but there's so much experience that goes into that.
Learning on the job as England captain is hard.
You're there to score runs. If you don't do that over a period of time, people will look elsewhere. That hasn't changed and that'll never change, whether it's myself or Jimmy Anderson, you've got to play to a certain level to be picked for England or even Essex.
The one thing about professional sport is it's all about results, and at the end of the day, if someone is employing you and you're not scoring runs or you're not taking wickets, they ain't going to carry on doing it, and there's no any other way of saying that; that's unfortunately the ruthless business of professional sport.
When I watch Twenty20 cricket, there's a different satisfaction. That hundred you get in six hours is a very satisfying feeling. A real triumph of skill. I don't quite see that in the 20-over game - or the 100-ball game.
Yes, there are absolutely moments when you're running out of ideas, and you do genuinely feel sorry for the bowlers when you keep asking them to run in again on a flat wicket, when partnerships get away from you, especially at the tail, which is one of the big differences in the modern game.
When I'm away from cricket I switch off totally. Otherwise I would never be able to keep that same hunger.
Everyone has technical flaws - no matter how many runs you score.
As cricketers we're judged on the average we have from being a 21-year-old who's just come into international cricket to the day you retire.
It does take a lot of effort to perform, playing for England. It's a huge amount of sacrifice to do and one day I might just wake up and say 'you know what, I'm done with it.'
No matter how much cricket you have played you are always learning.
The family farm plays such a big part in my life and I genuinely love going back there. In some ways I'd like to spend every day there, but there would be a big hole in my life if I didn't stay involved in cricket.
You're either singing on TV or in front of a full cathedral and there's a bit of pressure there. I know it sounds funny but if you get used to doing it, then performing in front of people playing cricket is the same sort of thing.
I suppose you could say I was always having to defend my style of captaincy. I did get a lot of criticism - some of it justified, other times as part of a tactic.
You're only England captain for a very short space of time.
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