766 and all that – when Cook conquered Australia

Brisbane is not a city to give England some much-needed Ashes optimism.

The tourists must prepare for a trip to the Gabba, an area England haven’t won since 1986, after being defeated by Australia in the first Test.

Men wearing three lions have habitually been lambs to the slaughter at the Gabbatoir.

A shining knight delivered inspiration from a recent history of broken English hopes, dreams, and bodies.

It is exactly 15 years since Sir Alastair Cook conquered the Gabba with a career-defining 235 not out, saving the first Test of 2010-11 and setting England on course to their only Ashes series win in Australia in the past 38 years.

Three hundred and 766 runs of Cook’s triumphant circumnavigation of Australia came to an end. Wally Hammond is the only Englishman to score more runs in a series in this country.

England won by one innings and won all of the previous victories. They have not won a Test here since.

Cook says on the podcast Test Match Special, “You forget the difficult times, the nervousness, and anxiety that came with that.”

“I look back with pride. When England defeated Australia 3-1, and all three of the games were won by an innings, was a significant part of my series. That just doesn’t happen. I need to sit down and watch some of it one day.

Cook’s road to his Australian epic began 18 months earlier, at the end of the 2009 Ashes in the UK. England prevailed, but the opener averaged less than 25 and had just one score over 50.

He wanted more.

Although cricket is a team sport, he claims that the individuality does give you the impression that you are trying to pull your weight. “The stats are very clear. If I had chosen to participate in an Ashes series that I did well, that would have meant more.

” I wanted to judge myself against the best and my game wasn’t stacking up against the best bowlers in the world.

“Two days after the celebrations, I was back hitting hundreds and hundreds of balls in the nets with Graham Gooch, trying to groove something that seemed very unnatural, thinking it would improve my technique over time.”

The initial results were encouraging. Cook made three hundreds while traveling to Bangladesh and South Africa during the winter of 2009-2010.

Cook was persuaded that this was his final Test match before being dropped at the end of the second day of the third Test against Pakistan at The Oval.

“I was sitting in the bar, trying to find the answer in the bottom of a beer bottle”, he says.

“I made the promise to myself, Don’t go out defending tomorrow.” That was where I was at.

It cleared the mind, they said. I decided to go back to my old technique. By lunchtime on the third day, I had 76.

Cook’s 110 guaranteed his seat on the plane to Australia, albeit via an infamous team-bonding trip to Bavaria dreamt up by England coach Andy Flower and captain Andrew Strauss.

Players performed hundreds of press-ups while carrying bricks uphill. James Anderson suffered a cracked rib in a boxing session. Cook was fortunately unaware of almost everything.

” I was at my brother’s wedding, “he says”. The last day was when I showed up. The most broken men were Strauss and Flower. Because they had the right plan, I believed it was effective.

“I’m genuinely disappointed I did miss it. There were constant references to that camp for the next few months. At the time it was horrendous, but the fact we were still talking about it years later shows it had its worth. Every night, I believe people really stoked the campfire.

Well-drilled on and off the pitch, England continued their preparations by winning two and drawing one of their warm-up games in Australia – Cook scored a century against South Australia at the Adelaide Oval.

They were hit by Peter Siddle’s hat-trick in the opening Test at the Gabba, followed by Mike Hussey and Brad Haddin’s scores in the following Tests.

An hour before the end of the third day, Cook and Strauss opened England’s second innings with a deficit of 221 runs. At stumps, they won 19-0, and their subsequent performance was immortalized in Ashes folklore.

“I don’t remember the messages, anything of what we spoke about”, says Cook. The pitch was free of demons, and we had an experienced team. We just had to show some fight”.

For the first wicket, the left-handers added 188. Strauss made 110. Jonathan Trott eased into Cook’s slipstream for an unbeaten 135.

“It was my 14th Test hundred, but the first time when it felt like I had really contributed and made a difference”, says Cook.

“It reinforced our belief that the Australian team was ready to take.” We got out of jail, but in a way that gave us a lot of confidence”.

The second Test’s opening day in Adelaide was a remarkable success for England. Simon Katich was run out by Trott’s direct hit from the fourth ball of the match and Australia captain Ricky Ponting was out first ball to Anderson.

Australia were 2-3 after Anderson also nicked off Michael Clarke. The home side spiralled to 245 all out, leaving England one over to bat at the end of the first day.

According to Cook, “We entered the changing room and Flower inquired if we were having a nightwatchman.”

“If Jimmy Anderson opened the batting, got out, then I went out to bat, imagine the stick I’d have got from the Australians when they were pumped up.

Straussy typically took the first ball, but I told him, “I’m going out there now and will face the first ball.” You do what you want’.

He responded, “OK.” I’ll do it as well'”.

Cook’s heroics in Brisbane were followed by 148 in a Test that will forever be remembered for Kevin Pietersen’s 227 against the Australians. Off-spinner Graeme Swann took five wickets in the second innings to bowl England to victory just before the heavens opened on the fifth day.

There’s no better place to be hungry than a flat Adelaide pitch in 40-degree heat, says Cook, “because I was struggling the entire summer.”

“The KP double hundred was a real marker of dominance, of taking Australia down. He led the team, and the result was a win-win situation. He hammered Australia into the ground”.

Only Mitchell Johnson would have predicted the havoc he would cause four years later, allowing England to retain the Ashes in Perth.

England bowled out Australia for 268 and reached 78-0 in reply before Johnson got going. England lost by 267 runs in the match thanks to the left-armer’s nine wickets.

“We had a team meeting straight after and I wasn’t sure it was the right thing to do”, says Cook.

“It turned out to be the best choice,” he said. Flower wanted us to look at how we lost the game.

Did we start to consider the end result rather than what we were doing? Did we think we had done all the hard work and were going to win? Perhaps we were considering keeping the Ashes in Perth. I don’t know.

It was crucial to get the answers to some questions, even though we may not be aware of them. We went to Melbourne and the Perth game was buried. It ended up being a two-match series at 1-1.

Perhaps England’s greatest Ashes game ever occurred in Australia.

At the Melbourne Cricket Ground, the 100, 000-seater cathedral of Australian sport, and on Boxing Day, the highlight of the calendar in this country, the home side were blown away for 98. At the close, England’s Cook and Strauss had a score of 157-0.

” If Carlsberg did Boxing Days, it was that. At the conclusion of the day, “says Cook,” there was disbelief. Me and Strauss cleared the MCG with our batting – most people wanted to go home when we were batting together.

“On Boxing Day, the Aussies are very pleased how many people can travel to the MCG.” By the end there were only 20, 000 English people watching me and Strauss grind it around Melbourne.

“What we did as a group is absolutely tops the list of things I could do to go back in time and play any day over again.”

Trott made 168 and England won by an innings and 157 runs. A sprinkler dance on the MCG outfield celebrated keeping the Ashes.

” I felt a little bit uneasy doing it, because we hadn’t gone there to retain the Ashes – we’d gone there to win, “says Cook.

We hadn’t finished yet, despite the fact that I enjoyed the dressing room in Melbourne and a few of the young people who had gone out with the Barmy Army.

“A result of 2-2 would have felt a bit of an injustice. We still had Sydney, regardless of how good Melbourne was.

Fuelled by the focus to win the urn, Cook was at it again at the Sydney Cricket Ground. His 189-run victory gave England its highest total in an Australian Test, 644.

The question was not if England would win the match and the Ashes, but when.

Cook recalls that Chris Tremlett “bounced out Brad Haddin and brought Mitchell Johnson to the wicket on the fourth evening.”

“The song the Barmy Army sang, I’ve never heard anything like it. Tremmers said, “I’m just going to bowl this as quickly as I can,” when I spoke with him. He bowled an absolute jaffa to Johnson, and it bowled him. It’s the loudest noise I’ve ever heard.

England took the extra half an hour on that fourth evening, but could not get over the line.

A victory procession took place on the fifth morning. The Barmy Army and the rest of the travelling supporters were joined in the SCG by every ex-pat and backpacker in Sydney for an English Ashes party.

Cook describes the atmosphere as “unbelievable.” “It felt like an age, I was desperate to take the final wicket.

It was pure elation, just incredible, when Tremlett won the match and brought Michael Beer out.

“It was so early in the day, we had so much time to soak it in. We stayed for absolutely ages on the field and in the changing areas, but I’m not sure when we left the ground. It was very, very special”.

The series’ player was Cook. The remaining seven years of his Test career were illuminated by other milestones: a starring performance in the 2012 series win in India, winning the Ashes as captain in 2015 and breaking the England records for most Test runs and hundreds.

There were also some bad things, most notably his humiliating 5-0 defeat as Australia’s captain in 2013-14.

Following his international retirement in 2018, Cook was knighted for services to cricket. The tour of Australia in 2010 and 2011 provided the best example of that service.

“I couldn’t have played any better”, he says. I was very fortunate to have been a part of that team, which achieved something uncommon for England in Australia.

” When you win games of cricket, it is unbelievably special. Although it required effort, international sport also requires effort.