The former England captain Alastair Cook, who is one of the mainstays of English batting in this upcoming Ashes starting this week feels there is nothing as magic balls and the havoc created by speedster Mitchell Johnson four years back is irrelevant.
Cook has urged his teammates to focus on the first test starting at the Gabba, and the let the Australians concentrate on history if they want to.
The war of words to build up the Ashes series is now almost over with off-spinner Nathan Lyon’s statement that Australia was in mood ‘to end some careers’, admitting some English batsmen were so frightened by the left-arm pacer Johnson that they wanted to fly back home in the middle of the series.
The 32-year-old batsmen, who are one of the five members who toured Australia four years back, while talking to the reporters about the same said,
“Mitch bowled outstandingly in that series, one of the best periods of bowling I’ve ever faced backed up by Ryan Harris, Peter Siddle – (but) they’re no longer playing. So in one sense, it’s a bit irrelevant. It happened four years ago, and it’s all that happens on Thursday rather than looking back. England has won four of the last five Ashes series, so you can look at what you want.”
The southpaw Cook talked highly about the current pace trio of Australia, in the form of Mitchell Starc, Jose Hazlewood, and Pat Cummins; however, he added that they hadn’t invented anything new.
“There’s nothing we haven’t seen before in cricket. They’re not suddenly bowling 150 miles an hour. (They’ve) not got magic balls which start way outside the stumps and swing miles and stuff. They’re very good bowlers with good records. As batters, that is the challenge we’ve got in the next seven weeks,” he further stated.
The left-handed opening batsman Cook feels only trash talk was emanating from the Australian camp.
“I had a really nice 10-minute chat with Nathan. He was the first person I saw when I got to the ground, asking how my kids were. It just makes me chuckle, I suppose – it makes everyone chuckle. It is what it is. All the talking stops very quickly, and the series becomes a normal series after the first two hours,” Cook who will like to improve his statistics from the last time signed off.