He might have been the heir apparent for more than a year but Alastair Cook insisted he’d been taken aback by his elevation to the England Test captaincy following Andrew Strauss’s retirement on Wednesday. Cook insisted he had no idea his Test match opening partner was considering not just giving up the captaincy but quitting all cricket, until told on Tuesday of his fellow left-hander’s decision. Asked if his elevation to the job he’d long been tipped to inherit had come earlier than expected Cook, who replaced Strauss as England’s one-day captain following the latter’s one-day retirement after last year’s World Cup, replied: “Yes I think it has. It’s been a bit of a strange 24 hours for me personally.
