Former England captain Alastair Cook took heavy offense to his former teammate Moeen Ali criticizing his captaincy while comparing it to that of Joe Root. This happened when the duo was discussing the ongoing fourth Test match during BT Sport's coverage.
The ex-spinner and captain’s awkward conversation took place during the rain-affected first day of the match between England and Australia.
Cook and Ali were discussing whether Joe Root should continue as England captain after the visitors lost the first three Ashes Tests of the ongoing series. England lost the first Test in Brisbane by 9 wickets, the second Test in Adelaide, a day-night affair by 275 runs, and the third Test in Melbourne by an innings and 16 runs.
Moeen Ali then began comparing the captaincy styles of Root and Cook in the former captain’s presence and it unraveled into a heated argument between the two cricketers as Cook took offense.
“Rooty has more of an emotional attachment with the players, he spends more time with the players," Ali said.
Cook seemed to take offense to this and responded: “Are you just criticizing my captaincy?”, before Ali replied bluntly: “I am a little bit, yeah. They're both very different, I did do better with the bat under Cooky but with the ball, I was better with Rooty.”
Cook shot back: “So you might criticize me but I’ve never dropped you, how many times did Rooty drop you?”
And neither did Ali, who said: “That’s true but you also batted me from 1 to 9 in my first year of international cricket.”
Cook, flustered by Ali’s blunt answers tried to defend himself and explained that he had to fit in Ali at different roles with the bat as he couldn’t figure out whether he was an opener or a tail-ender.
Meanwhile, Ali continued: “Just to go back to my point, Rooty was a little bit more involved with the players, in my opinion. Not that Cooky doesn’t care but I think Rooty is a bit more ‘arm over the shoulder’ kind of guy.”
Not impressed with Ali’s opinions, Cook retorted: “I’m not sure I will take this anymore, I've just come back from a nice holiday and I’ve walked straight into Moeen Ali off his long run.”
Alastair Cook retired from international cricket in 2018 after playing 161 Tests, scoring 12472 runs for England. He also played 92 ODIs, making 3204 runs and made 61 runs in 4 T20Is.
Moeen Ali recently announced his retirement from Test cricket, having played 64 matches, scoring 2914 runs, and taking 195 wickets.
(BT Sports inputs)
