Knight watchman Sir Alastair Cook is tipping England's 'Bazball' bazookas to rattle the Aussies this summer – because they keep finding a way to confound the critics.
Twenty years and 73 hundreds after making his first-class debut, Ashes legend Cook will pad up at Lord's for a new county season with Essex on Thursday tipping Ben Stokes and Brendon McCullum to turn England's wild things into the Urnvincibles.
As a four-times Ashes winner, the former St Paul's Cathedral choirboy knows how to make Australia sing for their supper. Now 38, but impossibly looking no older than the 21-year-old who answered England's SOS by flying halfway round the world to score a century on his Test debut in India, Cook held court at his Chelmsford fortress and said: “Can Bazball work this summer? Absolutely, I think they can win.
