England aggression not so becoming for Cook

Do you remember when Leonard Cohen released an album of acid funk because it was in fashion? Or when Woody Allen started making snuff movies? Or when Hugh Grant stopped playing upper-class mumblers and attempted a career as a song and dance man?

No. Because it never happened. They realised what they were good at and they stuck to it. They realised that they had a skill, a method, that could withstand the vagaries of fashion and fortune.

Alastair Cook could learn from such consistency. From such self-confidence. Because Cook, seduced by talk of "aggressive" cricket, taunted by talk of his "negative" captaincy, allowed himself to be drawn away from his natural game on the first day of the Investec Ashes in Cardiff.

After defying the new ball in perfectly composed fashion, after accumulating a reassuringly comfortable 20, after seeing off Mitchell Johnson, he squandered the initiative with a few minutes of testosterone-fuelled bravado that suggested he had allowed all the talk, all the taunting, all the goading to cloud his mind.

It was not just his dismissal. Even before he was caught behind attempting to cut a delivery too full and too straight for the stroke, he had twice skipped down the pitch - a stroke he has rarely played in Test cricket - in an attempt to hit Nathan Lyon off his length. So determined was he to ensure that Lyon, the offspinner, did not settle, that he took the uncharacteristic, unnecessary option of trying to hit him out of the attack.

Cook came down the pitch to Lyon's third ball. He hardly came down the pitch on the tour of India three years ago, where his three centuries helped England to a memorable series victory, but here he did it after three balls. Before he had seen whether the pitch would turn. Before he had taken the time to see how Lyon was bowling.

For some players - Ben Stokes or Moeen Ali, for example - such an approach would be natural. But not Cook. This was not Cook's familiar game. He will never be Brendon McCullum. He will never smash 150 in a T20; he will never smash Steven Finn for 44 in 10 balls.

But what he can do - what he is really good at - is batting all day. He is very good at wearing out bowlers, accumulating runs and gradually gaining control of the match. And in Test cricket, where denial and discipline remain just as important as flair and flamboyance, those are valuable attributes. You don't have to seize control in a session. You have five days to gain the upper hand.

Australia have a well-deserved reputation for playing aggressive cricket. But even they, in early afternoon, utilised Shane Watson and Lyon in combination to try and frustrate England into a mistake. And in late afternoon, they utilised Watson and David Warner in similar fashion. Even Michael Clarke, renowned as a positive captain, knew there was a time for patience. He was trying to tempt England into mistakes.

In the case of Cook, and up to a point Ian Bell, who got off the mark with a lofted drive that evoked memories of his dismissal in Ahmedabad, it worked. Cook could have played the long game. He could have played out the maidens and built the foundation upon which his more naturally attacking teammates could have built. But instead he was seduced into twice skipping down the pitch and once - terminally in terms of this innings - trying to cut one too close to him.

This goes against what England have been saying ahead of the series. Before the Ashes started, they talked of playing the same game that had brought them success with their counties. The same game with which they were familiar and which they trusted. Skipping down the pitch and trying to force the pace is not, for Cook, that game. It is not positive cricket. It is a reaction to expectation, pressure and the situation.

Being positive does not necessarily mean trying to hit fours and sixes. It can equally mean backing yourself. Backing the style of play that has worked for you in the past. Backing yourself to ignore the pressure from public opinion, or fashion, or the opposition. Cook, in India, was positive by playing patiently, sweeping well and accumulating calmly. It is still what he does best. He doesn't need to change.

True, England recovered through the efforts of Joe Root and co. But Root could have been caught behind before he had scored and England's end-of-day total is probably no better than par on a slow-paced wicket. England would be better served by Cook providing the platform and leaving the big strokes to his team-mates.

Gary Ballance, by contrast, maintained the same style that was criticised so much after the New Zealand series. Waiting on the back foot, deep in his crease, he had moments where he looked deeply uncomfortable against Johnson's short ball. But he remained compact, he hardly attempted to pull and he was happy to play a supporting role to the more fluent Root. In short, he backed his own game and was not seduced by the occasion or the media into trying to be something he is not.

If England are to win this series, they will need Cook to play the patient game that has brought him 9000 runs and 27 centuries. He doesn't need to change.