Sir Alastair Cook relishing ‘bucket list’ role as Ashes commentator in Australia

Former England captain Sir Alastair Cook is ready for a “bucket list” experience in Australia as he prepares to call this winter’s Ashes action for viewers back home.

Cricket fans in the United Kingdom will not be taking their commentary from the phalanx of Baggy Green alumni who populate the local broadcasts Down Under or the ‘world feed’ that is made available to global rights holders, with TNT Sports putting together its own hybrid model.

Three members of the triumphant touring squad of 2010/11 – the last English side to win the urn away from home – will help bring the action to viewers, with Cook joining Graeme Swann and Steven Finn in front of the microphone.

Two of the three will be on the ground for each of the five Tests, joined by presenter Becky Ives, but the ‘play-by-play’ commentators Alastair Eykyn and Rob Hatch will be reporting the action remotely from London. Neither have a significant profile in cricket, with Eykyn best known for his work in rugby, while Hatch has won awards for his coverage of cycling.

Scott Young, executive vice-president of WBD Sports Europe, which oversees TNT, said the pair were “huge cricket fans” and the technology links meant viewers “won’t know where they are” as they interact with pundits at the venue.

But for Cook, who plans to attend the first, fourth and fifth games, it is a chance to fully savour a contest he has only ever experienced as a player.

“I’m genuinely so excited to be out there, I’m lucky enough enough to be there for the first game and it’s on my bucket list of things to do,” he said.

“Being able to take it all in and get that feeling… I never did that as a player. You don’t enjoy it, there’s too much angst going on, so I’m really looking forward to getting there for a couple of days and just experiencing it.

“There’s a real buzz around this England team and you get the sense they are capable of doing something special this time.”

When his punditry career started shortly after his Test retirement in 2018, Cook vowed not to criticise his former team-mates, but that position has evolved now that he has greater distance from the dressing room he once led.

“It’s so long ago that I played, I’m less worried about what I say,” he said.

“I don’t see it as criticising, but I’m comfortable enough in my own skin and my relationship to those players now is more removed. Those first couple of years I was so emotionally involved in the England side that it was hard. But I’ve always wanted to stay involved. I enjoy it and I hope I’ve got slightly better at it.”

While Cook already knows he will be on duty when the action gets under way in Perth on November 21, he hopes the same will be true of Ollie Pope.

The Surrey man looks to be going head to head with Jacob Bethell for the number three slot and Cook has urged England to keep faith with the man in possession.

“I would bat Ollie Pope at three. I think it’s quite an easy decision actually,” he said.

“You’ve got someone who’s been part of the build-up for three or four years, he’s captained the side, he’s played some extraordinary innings and he knows how to make hundreds in first-class cricket.

“If you get rid of him now I think it changes the whole dynamic of what you’ve built over the last few years and how settled they feel. It would be a big, big gamble.

“They’ve invested so much in people like Pope, it would be a strange thing to change now.”

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