(MENAFN- Khaleej Times)England skipper Alastair Cook has said that at the start of the summer he thought of quitting as captain but England's 3-1 victory over Australia in Ashes series has made him change his mind and focus on taking his side to the next level in cricket.
Hosts England won the fourth Test at Trent Bridge by an innings and 78 runs inside three days to take a 3-1 lead with one Test to go. Australia had earlier lost the first and third Tests and are trailing the five-match series 1-3. "At the start of this summer I didn't know what was going to happen and I wasn't sure if I would continue beyond the Ashes. But while you've still got the opportunity to be England captain and you've still got more to give which I now feel I have then you need to carry on and give it your all to take England to next level" Cook was quoted as saying by dailymail.co.uk on Saturday. "I woke up and immediately started thinking about trying to win the Ashes 4-1 and then about what we will have to do to win against Pakistan. It came quickly to me to start planning ahead and that told me that I probably wanted to carry on a bit longer." The gutsy skipper said that he was leaving nothing to chance after what transpired in the build up to the 2015 World Cup where he was dropped from the side three months before the quadrennial event. "It's such an honour to lead England and that's why I think most people stay on until the bitter end" Cook opined. "That usually comes at a tough time when you think 'I can't force myself to go through this again'. I'd love to go out on a high but I kind of knew pretty quickly after the end of the game at Trent Bridge that I still have that drive to take this team forward. "I haven't spoken to Andrew Strauss yet and I don't want to look too far ahead the one-day stuff has taught me that but as long as they still want me and as long as Trevor Bayliss doesn't have other ideas I'll carry on." Cook became the target for the bile of those enraged by the sacking of Kevin Pietersen and took its toll on him and his family and made him think hard about his future. "There have been some really dark moments in the last year or so. There was the KP affair and that dragged English cricket through some bad periods. I bore the brunt of that negativity and it took it out of me and my family. To come through that means a lot" he said. "This is not a 'poor me' thing but I felt in the really low moments that I was getting blamed for absolutely everything that had gone wrong. Even when we had a bad day and I hadn't done anything it was still my fault. "There were times when I found it very hard to deal with and was very close to giving it all up. To stay strong through it all I'm proud of that" Cook said. The 30-year old Cook said he was surprised by how quickly his young side had grown in stature but warned against complacency surrounding talks about world domination in the wake of the series win. "To win any Ashes series is incredible but we weren't expected to win this one by many people. Even I didn't think we were quite ready to win it. I thought we needed another year growing as a side but I was proven wrong by the guys. They were absolutely outstanding and grew very quickly. "This side is younger than the one in 2009 who won the Ashes and went on to become the best in the world in 2011 so it's a really exciting time but let us not get too carried away with world domination. One step at a time. The next challenge is to do something that no English side has done and that's win an Ashes series 4-1 at home and then after that it will be winning away. - IANS
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