Alastair Cook rediscovers form to keep England in hunt

It might not seem like much for a man with over 12,000 Test runs, 32 centuries, and a place in the pantheon assured, but Alastair Cook’s innings of 70 against Pakistan was mightily meaningful, both for his team and on a personal level.

For England, this was a vital innings. Seven batsmen made single figures, with Ben Stokes’ 38 the next highest score. The importance of Cook’s performance was highlighted by the collapse of 6/35 which his dismissal precipitated. England ended the day a long way behind the game, having seen Pakistan proceed to 50/1 in response to their 184, but without Cook, they might well have all but lost it already.

For the man himself, this was just the second time in 18 Test innings that he had passed 40, and though his staggering record and the fact that the one 40-plus score in that time was a mammoth 244* against Australia grant him a long rope, murmurs were just starting to grow that it might not be long until England’s new head of selectors Ed Smith might have a tough decision to make.

This was more than an innings that bought Cook time; the manner in which he played suggested that England’s all-time leading Test runscorer might just be rediscovering the form which made him so.

"I played nicely," Cook said after the close of play. "A few things had creeped into my game in the last six months or so. In New Zealand, I couldn't get my weight back into the ball as I would have liked to do. You go away and work on it and I thought it was pretty decent today. I've been spending a lot of time trying to get my weight back into the ball. You're always fiddling a bit with certain angles.

"You're never going to get it perfect, we're not robots. I've been trying to get my line-up slightly differently. I've been quite happy actually with how I've played for Essex so far this season without getting a hundred and hopefully I can get one in the second innings here."

The conditions also made the innings more impressive, and had some questioning the decision of Cook’s successor as captain Joe Root to bat first. "It did swing and it did nip throughout the day,” said Cook. "Obviously, it did do probably a bit more than we expected it to. It was a hard decision. It will be easy at the end of the game to see if it was the right decision. Fundamentally, it's a dry wicket underneath but it had green grass on it and it rained overnight so it's a weird one.”

Cook feels that the nature of the pitch, and how Lord’s has played historically over the years, means that if England bowl well they could come back into the game. “Pakistan bowled good lines and lengths for the majority of the time and they got their rewards for it,” he said.

"50 for one can very quickly be 80 for 4, 120 for 7 and the game changes so that's the beauty of Test cricket. It's a five day Test match. There's a lot of things that can happen. In the long form of the game, you can have a not great day but you have a chance to bounce back.

"The first hour will be crucial tomorrow. It changes very quickly as when Stokesy and Jos [Buttler] got out today. 160 for 5 was suddenly 160 for 7. There are balls in that wicket, if it stays like it is, for us to do that. I'm pretty sure that wicket is going to dry quickly if it gets warm. Lord's over the last couple of years, if it does get hot, balls tend to go down [keep low] and it can be quite hard to score runs. It will be interesting to see if it does do that."

If England do bounce back, they will plenty to thank one of their greatest players for once again playing a key hand.