LONDON: England captain Alastair Cook's dreadful run of form continued as he was dismissed for just 22 on the fourth day of the second Test against India at Lord's on Sunday.
The left-handed opener fell in all-too familiar fashion when, having batted for more than two hours, he pushed at a ball outside off stump from seamer Ishant Sharma and was caught behind for the second time in the match by opposing captain Mahendra Singh Dhoni.
That made it 27 innings since the 29-year-old Cook had scored the last of his England record 25 Test hundreds.
And it also meant that Cook had totalled a meagre 129 runs in nine Test innings this calendar year.
The more immediate concern for England was that Cook's latest dismissal came during a collapse that saw England lose three wickets for two runs as they slumped to 72 for four chasing an imposing 319 for victory in a bid to go 1-0 up in the five-match series.
"Alastair Cook was doing okay, but he was doing alright in the first innings until he got out," England opening great Geoffrey Boycott, commentating for BBC Radio's Test Match Special, said.
"He can't totally eradicate his faults. The selectors are all hoping he gets a fifty but it's not happening for him and it might be even worse for him tomorrow (Monday) if England lose"
By Sunday's close, England had reached 105 for four, with Joe Root 14 not out and Moeen Ali unbeaten on 15.
Cook's slump has coincided with an England run of nine successive Tests without a victory, their worst for more than 20 years.
Before play began Sunday, Michael Vaughan became the latest former England captain to suggest Cook needed to shed the responsibilities of leadership if he was to regain his form as a batsman.
"We have reached the stage with Cook when he cannot be enjoying cricket. You don't when you are not playing well and the team is struggling," Vaughan, England's 2005 Ashes-winning captain, wrote in his Telegraph column. "It is easy for the England and Wales Cricket Board hierarchy to say it is going to stick by him but it has to ask what is best for the team and for Cook. "The ECB has a responsibility to Cook the person to do the right thing and if that means taking the captaincy away then so be it."
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