Cook questions wisdom of Graves’s ‘mediocre’ label for West Indies

England drew the Wisden Trophy series 1-1 after slipping to a five-wicket defeat late on the third day in the final Test in Barbados.

It was a compelling match, which swung in the hosts’ favour on the second evening as England lurched to 39-5 in 21 manic overs.

They were dismissed on Sunday morning for 123, leaving a 192-run target that was knocked off by Darren Bravo (82) and Jermaine Blackwood (47no).

The scenes of West Indian celebrations will not have gone down well with former Yorkshire chairman Graves, who starts work as Giles Clarke’s successor later this month, and warned Cook’s team weeks ago there would be an inquiry should they not win the series.

Asked about the effect those words had, Cook said: “A comment’s a comment, it’s his right as chairman to say what he wants, but it’s never ideal against an opposition you’re about to play.

“It gives everyone else a team talk, we know that.

“But we can’t control anything about that. So as the players we get on with it. If we’d played to our potential and taken our opportunities it would have been irrelevant.”

Cook’s belief that Graves’s comments will have fired up the hosts were confirmed by West Indies’ coach Phil Simmons, who even had a sign with the antagonistic phrase plastered on his side’s dressing room door during the first Test in Antigua.

And the former all-rounder took the chance to return fire after seeing off England in front of a watching Graves in Bridgetown.

“The media and Colin Graves’s statement showed there was an underestimation of what we could do,” said Simmons.

“I’ll leave that for him to judge, but as he walked out (of the Kensington Oval) I think he may have seen some signs with the word ‘mediocre’ on them.

“It was [a motivation] on the first occasion in Antigua, but then we took it off the door as it really meant nothing.

“As one of the guys said, who is he? How much cricket has he played?”

Listen to The Yorkshire Post’s cricket writer Chris Waters discuss the England tour of the West Indies in the latest edition of our CricketTalk podcast HERE

Graves’s arrival at Lord’s is not the only change due at the top of English cricket, with a new director of cricket still on the agenda.

The likes of Michael Vaughan, Andrew Strauss and Alec Stewart have all thrown their hats into the ring, and the successful candidate could yet decide on the future of head coach Peter Moores and Cook himself.

The touring squad have risen above all speculation during the course of the ongoing series but with a busy Test summer due to begin against New Zealand at Lord’s on May 21, crunch time is coming.

Cook brushed aside speculation that his former opening partner Strauss was set to be appointed, and concentrated on backing Moores to continue.

“Isn’t he (Strauss) the third front-runner we’ve had in the last five weeks? Let’s just wait until the director gets announced, and whoever it is we’ll obviously have to have a chat,” he said.

“A lot of good stuff from Mooresy, but all these decisions are nothing to do with me, and probably nothing to do with Mooresy either.

“But we’ve prepared the players well, and they have responded to him. We’ve had a good tour in that sense.”

While England will fly home having lost much of the feelgood factor they built on a thrilling last-day finish in Grenada, Cook was able to identify positives.

He was part of the team who lost 1-0 on their previous Test tour of the West Indies, a defeat preceded a summer Ashes success and contained the building blocks of a side who went to become No 1 in the world.

“The best England side I played with, we started losing out here 1-0 in 2009,” he said.

“We had an amazing run after that and got better and better. There are little similarities.

“I think we’ve got some really good players, and hopefully we can replicate the journey the other side went on.”