Cook adds more flavour to the mix

IT IS a problem with cricket in such an inclement climate that an entire Test match could effectively be ended as a contest and spectacle by some desultory rain. Lord's in early May can be a wonderful sight but since this match started on Thursday the grey and dark clouds have hovered, forcing the players to and from the field.

A Test match is meant to develop like a novel, characters exposing themselves and myriad plots and storylines emerging with every boundary, wicket and personal duel. This one has yet to find a rhythm. Partly this was the fault of the overeager Steve Bucknor on Friday. His light meter worked overtime as the game stalled and the players snoozed in the dressing rooms but yesterday it was actual dank, depressing drizzle that did for cricket.

Of the play possible in the morning Alastair Cook continued to show the improvement and development of his batting. His temperament has not been in doubt since he was shot-gunned into a surprise debut in Nagpur, India in March 2006 when injuries forced a swift flight from the 'A' tour and immediate promotion to open the innings.

He scored 60 and then a second innings century and never looked anything but a Test class opening batsman. Theirs is not a life of glamour and swashbuckle but of hard toil when the pitch is freshest and the ball hardest. Good openers develop a curmudgeonly mindset, a stubborn refusal to wail at the vagaries of life as they know their career will be littered with failures. It is the nature of the beast.

So Cook nudged and nurdled, accumulating runs and plaudits as much for his composure as his results. However, over the winter he decided he needed to develop a more attacking method. The aim was not to become a domineering stroke player like Kevin Pietersen, who has followed Viv Richards' method of wanting to dominate a bowler totally, but to prevent a bowler from dominating the England batting by stopping runs being scored.

It was a mature piece of thinking and one encouraged by the coaching staff. If Cook can keep the scoreboard ticking along then the game will move forward and generally in favour of England. So he has worked on the cut shot, shown he is more prepared to move forward to the ball, eager to drive into the many gaps, and generally made himself the senior partner in this revisited partnership of Cook and Andrew Strauss.

Before the rain recommenced forcing an early lunch, he roused his tenth half century and with fairer weather today should continue to his eighth Test century. Not that it will be a procession. The New Zealand bowlers were not always easy. Kyle Mills extracts steep bounce by fully utilising his tall frame and Chris Martin is an ever-willing workhorse. What they have lacked, though, is consistency as a bowling partnership.

England showed what bowling in pairs – as the cricketing vernacular terms it – does to batsmen during the first two days. Apart from an off-key Ryan Sidebottom on Thursday, when his length was a yard too short, the seamers showed commendable discipline and accuracy.

James Anderson and Stuart Broad have blossomed in the absence of more senior players. The runes were well and truly read on Wednesday when Matthew Hoggard, the most earthy of England stalwarts, was informed that his immediate future was for Yorkshire and not England in this match. There was a feeling that the old guard were not so much gone, as fading into memory. Of course, the huge spectre of Freddie Flintoff is still circulating around English cricket, and but for a sore side he would have played here. However, such is his body and form that he should really be considered a precious strike bowler with the capacity for some lusty lower order hitting than the true all-rounder of 2004-5 vintage.

He will be needed later this summer when South Africa arrive. They have talent, aggression and a pace man in Dale Steyn that will demand some competing fireballs. Flintoff is the only England bowler to provide.

And for similar with the bat, England should not look to Cook, but Pietersen. Or for as long as playing for his adopted country allures him. News that he is soon to sign a $4m three-year deal for the IPL have surprised no one in cricket. He is, as he says, in 'his prime', but there is a more than a whiff of mercenary behaviour about the latest rumours and comments. This was a cricketer who last year used a promotional event for a personal sponsor to complain of tiredness brought on from constant cricket. It would seem that such tiredness can be alleviated if the dollars are plentiful enough.

These cricketers deserve to benefit from the orgy of money currently on offer in India and no doubt there is enough room below Pietersen's ostentatious Three Lions tattoo on his arm for any number of IPL franchises to satisfy his need for public approval as much as his need for money.

He will provide his very best. He always has. But it generally is for an employer, not a passion. That's where he and the more sedate Cook differ.