Alastair Cook vs Kevin Pietersen

[BazBall21]

I'm a huge Gower fan, that would be recency bias because I suspect not so many folk would necessarily remember Gower too well. Cook never reached the levels that Gooch did in the early 90s with levels of centuries against good attacks that was beyond what Cook did achieve.

Gooch and Gower were both much better than Cook.

 

[BazBall21]

Gower can match Cook against spin, and was far better against pace. No way is Cook emulating three hundreds against Hadlee in England. Lateral movement caused him problems throughout his career because of his technique. He was a flat wickets batsman that had to open in England. His success came in spite of that role rather than because he was great at it. Gower also repeatedly did well in Australia (good attacks except 86/87) whereas Cook only had one good series against them which happened to be the weakest Australian attack since 87.
Gooch was far superior to Cook against quality pace and it's a myth that he struggled to cash in. The thing that troubled him (swing), Cook struggled even more against.

Cook was a good honest player that played spin well and had tremendous mental skills but he's a tier below Gooch, Gower and KP.

 

[PlayerComparisons]

Who was more important to English cricket

 

[Chin Music]

Who was more important to English cricket

Despite the fourth estate’s attempt to nigh on beatify him after the 2013/14 disaster I can’t look past that Cook was truly terrible as the leader of England. He was allowed a further three years in post when he should have been dismissed from his role as captain then . This has nothing to do with his evaluation as a player and neither does Pietersen and his awful efforts as skipper in Chennai 2008. So it is best to look past that and focus solely on batting.

 

[Johan]

Cook in retrospect.

 

[Aidan11]

KP was an entertainer but Cook was more solid and reliable.

 

[PlayerComparisons]

The way I see it is Cook was more reliable on flat pitches and better at grinding down medicore attacks. But Pietersen was the better player against quality attacks which counts for more when their averages are in a similar bracket. Not to bring Cook down though, who was certainly very good and had a terrific career.

Don’t think it should count for more tbh. Depending on the strength of your team, scoring against mid/weak attacks might actually be more valuable than scoring against the very best attacks. (Cook in 10/11 ashes was more valuable than KP in 06/07 ashes and Vaughan in 02/03 ashes for example)

 

[Yeoman]

Not normally a fan of these player comparison threads however this is a good one as their careers largely ran in parallel and they are such contrasting players with similar records

A close call for me however I ultimately plumbed for Cook. Pietersen clearly had far more natural talent however Cook compensated with greater mental calm. Both averaged over 40 against all opponents save one and both did well home and away. Finally went for Cook as I am inclined to give extra credit to the averages of openers who have to face the new ball when the bowlers are fresh.

 

[sledger]

Still of the view the view that Cook was ultimately the greater test batsman, simply because of what he achieved and the context in which he achieved it.

But Pietersen was a remarkably talented player imo, quite unlike any other I can remember seeing in my lifetime. His own worst enemy, and the bloke is clearly a ****. But the fact that he played over 100 tests, averaged nearly 50, and in spite of that it's still a widely held view that he considerably underachieved/failed to reach his potential is hugely revealing as to just how talented he was imo.