Flower talks about his charges

England's coach, Andy Flower, has said that Alastair Cook must concentrate on being his own man as he prepares to lead the team on their tour of Bangladesh, which gets underway with a one-day warm-up against a BCB XI in Fatullah today.
Despite confirming that Paul Collingwood will serve as England's official vice-captain for the five-week trip, Flower is adamant that Cook is sufficiently worldly-wise to shoulder the leadership burden without having to lean too heavily on his senior colleagues.
"The most important thing for Alastair Cook is that he is quite clear in his own head how he wants to lead the side," Flower told reporters prior to the team's departure from Dubai. "Also, how will he deal with the eternal challenge for cricket captains, of leading a team while also making sure that your own game is in order, which is very important."
Following the decision to give Andrew Strauss a break ahead of the English season, Cook was named as England captain for a trip which includes three ODIs and two Tests. It was a move that met with considerable opposition, not least because Cook has not been entirely certain of his place in the side of late. He had been short of Test form until a timely run of scores in the recent series in South Africa, but he was 12th man in this week's Twenty20 series in Dubai, and will lead England into next week's three ODIs without having featured in a 50-over match since November 2008.
"I think he's content with his batting," said Flower. "One of the healthy things about Cook is that he's always looking to improve. He's done some really good work with Graham Gooch, who he respects and I respect tremendously, and they've worked really well together. If you couple his slightly altered technique with the determination and ability to deal with pressure that he's always had, you've got a strong package."
Flower added that he expected nothing less than victory in the five matches of the tour, but felt that the pressure to win straightaway would not faze Cook. "I shouldn't think it will be playing on his mind at all," he said. "He will have thought about both series, and talked about both series already, but it would be wrong to look that far ahead. As a sportsman, you control what you can control, and looking at the end result of a five-week tour is not the way to do with that."
Should injury or illness afflict Cook during the tour, Collingwood will now be the man who takes charge, despite admitting that he doesn't want a full captaincy role again having found the job difficult during his time as one-day leader in 2007-08. He is nevertheless an experienced and level-headed figure to have alongside a young captain, and he has also been in impressive form through England's recent overseas trips, beginning with the Champions Trophy and continuing on the tour of South Africa which concluded last month.
"The last time Colly captained the one-dayers, it took a lot out of him, and he doesn't want to put his name forward in a medium to long-term capacity for the captaincy," said Flower. "But he knows this would only be a stop-gap measure. As he said (on Saturday), if someone gets injured he's quite happy to step into the breach."
Flower added that Kevin Pietersen had also come into consideration for the role, despite some well-publicised differences of opinion between the two during Pietersen's shortlived stint as captain in 2008. "We had to consider all options as possible leadership candidates, and he was one of them," said Flower. "But in the end it was a simple cricketing decision.
"Collingwood did a good job in the Twenty20s, and it does take a while to get up to speed as captain, so the more you get used to thinking in that way, the better," said Flower. "With some of the Twenty20 cricket we've played with Colly captaining, he's feeling more comfortable."
The fact that Pietersen's run-scoring is so important for England may well have played a part in the management deciding not to burden him with the vice-captaincy. He showed a pleasing return to form in the 1-1 series against Pakistan with two impressive innings -- an unbeaten 43 followed by a 40-ball 62 -- after admitting he has found it tough since returning from injury.