Johannesburg - Exactly a year to the day since an anguished conversation with his franchise coach about being overlooked yet again by the national selectors, Stephen Cook was basking in the glory of a Man-of-the-Match performance in just his seventh Test.
For those who’ve been watching Cook for a number of seasons score with metronomic consistency at domestic level, his display in Port Elizabeth against Sri Lanka came as no surprise. You can almost hear the calls of: “Told you so,” and if you do, those making the calls can be forgiven.
A year ago Cook, pictured, sat in the Wanderers dressing room off the back of an unbeaten 168 against the Warriors and wondered out loud to Geoffrey Toyana what it was he needed to do to break into the South African Test team.
Cook had celebrated that particular century more animatedly than others, perhaps thinking his time had finally come and that the selectors had to recognise the error of their judgment in sticking by Stiaan van Zyl for so long at the top of the order.
It would take them two more Tests to admit they were wrong, by which point the series against England was lost. Meanwhile, Cook went on and made another hundred the following week for the Lions, backed that up with another half-century a week later before Linda Zondi eventually phoned him.
As if to prove a point, Cook duly stepped out at Centurion in the final Test against the English and made a hundred on debut. There was a vehement defence of the selectors’ backing of Van Zyl afterwards by coach Russell Domingo, but in the cold light of day, even he needed to recognise the importance of having natural opening batsmen at the top of the order for the Proteas.
Cook isn’t pretty to watch, he acknowledges that although some of his drives off the back foot through the cover region at St George’s Park were aesthetically pleasing, but he is mighty effective. Over 12 000 first class runs, most of those made in the toughest place in the world to open the batting, indicates a player who knows his game and because of that he plays to his strengths, something that may not be pleasing to the eye, but in the framework of what a team demands is extremely valuable.
Cook had an outstanding 2016, 575 runs at an average of 47.91 with three hundreds and two fifties and yet he still faced scrutiny from some viewers following a run of low scores in the first couple of Tests against Australia.
There is, as Cook discovered, far greater scrutiny over a player’s failures at international level than there is domestically and with many wondering who would stand down once AB de Villiers returned, Cook suddenly became an easy target.
That, despite the fact that De Villiers is no longer an opener and that by axing Cook to accommodate him, it would cause more instability than merely swapping out one of the middle-order players where De Villiers currently bats.
Cook has already underlined his importance to the Proteas and, as the Port Elizabeth Test showed, he and Dean Elgar are now beginning to combine well at the top of the order. “The only way to forge a partnership is to spend some time out there,” Cook said following their second innings opening stand of 116, which backed up their 104-run partnership in the first.
Elgar, like Cook, is a grafter, but such is the composition of the South African middle order that whatever time the openers spend at the crease, knocking the shine off the new ball, and putting some weariness into the minds and bodies of the opposition bowlers, will be taken advantage of by the likes of JP Duminy, Temba Bavuma, Quinton de Kock and when he returns to the Test team, De Villiers.
So, while that lean patch in Australia, which included a battling 23 in tricky conditions in Hobart, did see the pressure increased on Cook, he redoubled his efforts in Adelaide, concentrated even harder and emerged with a fine 104 under lights.
“I’ve had lots of highs and lots of lows in the year,” said Cook. “You strive for consistency in cricket, hopefully I can replicate the consistency I had in domestic cricket now, it’s been a bit up and down until recently. In the last four innings I’ve started to get more on an even keel, that’s how we like it as cricketers.”
Aged 34, many are wondering how much longer he can succeed at international level, but there are a number of players touching 40 who’ve been successful lately - including Pakistani pair Misbah ul-Haq and Younis Khan and Sri Lanka’s Rangana Herath. Jacques Kallis was still playing Test cricket and scoring hundreds when he was 38.
Cook has always been a fit individual and if anything the elevation into the Test team would have boosted his enthusiasm to keep going.
Form permitting, there is at least another three years of play in him and as he’s shown in just one year, in which he moved from anguish to ecstasy, playing Test cricket is exactly where he belongs.