Cricket great Sir Garfield Sobers’s belief in Alastair Cook’s one-day ability was rewarded by the England batsman’s century last weekend.
Cook is now one of the world’s leading Test openers, but there are doubts as to whether he can score quickly enough in one-dayers. It was a concern England’s selectors shared until they appointed him one-day captain, having left him out of their squad for this year’s World Cup, after Test skipper Andrew Strauss quit limited overs internationals.
Former England captain Michael Atherton labelled Cook “a plodder”.
But Sobers, speaking just days before Cook made a hundred in England’s six-wicket defeat by Sri Lanka in the third one-day international at Lord’s on Sunday, was adamant the Essex left-hander could transfer his Test form into the shorter format.
“In one-day cricket, I don’t agree with a lot of the scenarios people talk about,” West Indies star Sobers told AFP in an interview at Derby’s Cathedral Quarter Hotel, part of the Finesse Collection. “I feel if you are a good cricketer at any class of cricket you should be able to adapt into any position,” Sobers, widely regarded as cricket’s greatest all-rounder, added.
