“I wasn’t sure if I would continue beyond the Ashes”

Image courtesy of: Zimbio

Alastair Cook has revealed that he thought about stepping down as England captain at the start of the summer as he was unsure whether his side were capable of beating Australia in the Ashes.

But, after having taken an unassailable 3-1 lead after the fourth Test in Nottingham, Cook has no intentions of handing the reigns over any time soon.

“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,” he was quoted as saying by the Daily Mail. “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 admitted that perhaps his most darkest period as captain came during the entire Kevin Pietersen debacle, where he threw his support behind the idea of sacking the veteran batsman after England were whitewashed 5-0 during the last Ashes series in 2013-14.

The England skipper added that the backlash of his decision to terminate Pietersen not only affected him, but trickled down to his family as well.

“There have been some really dark moments in the last year or so,” he said. “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.

“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.”