“He’s performed well and kept working hard”

Image courtesy of: ESPNcricinfo

Legendary West Indies all-rounder Sir Garfield Sobers has revealed that England skipper Alastair Cook took his advice to “live calm”.

Sobers first got a glimpse of Cook at his international schools tournament in Barbados and subsequently proceeded to offer advice to the 30-year-old when he was in the infancy stages of his England career.

In the time that has passed since then, Cook has scored the most Test centuries by an English batsman, become the first England player to amass 9,000 Test runs and, most recently, he broke the record for the most Test runs in a calendar year by an England captain.

Sobers has attributed all of Cook’s success to his positive attitude and dedication to working on his game and wanting to become better.

“You can see when the youngsters have potential,” he said. “Alastair Cook was one of those, and within a couple of years after playing in the competition, he was making headlines.

“I had the opportunity to talk to him not long after he’d got into the England team. He’d scored a couple of quick hundreds, and I told him ‘don’t get carried away by this’.

“Sometimes people go into cricket, start well, think they have everything solved and get ahead of themselves. But he’s performed well and kept working hard.

“I said ‘forget about it, live calm’, and he’s done that. He’s really been a model as far as that is concerned. Attitude helps a lot in all forms and fashions.

“If you’ve got a good attitude whatever you’re doing, you’ll blossom. If you don’t care about this and about that, then nobody will care about you. If you show that you care, you’re committed and interested, people will help you, and that is what it is all about.”