Can Alastair Cook revive his ailing game to keep England's Ashes hopes alive?

Alastair Cook’s 150th Test will be the last Ashes Test at the Waca. It is also England’s last chance to retain the Ashes. If they lose the third Test, they will lose the urn they have held since August 2015.

Cook will become the first England player to reach this landmark of 150 Tests. The elder statesman, he has been there and done all that. But can he do it once more before the Ashes are lost, in what he called “the biggest game of our lives”, by emerging from the trough which has engulfed him since he nicked off second ball at the Waca in the opening practice game?

Before the series Nathan Lyon had spoken of his team’s ambition to end England careers, but they have not specified Cook as their target. Ten minutes before Cook spoke, Josh Hazlewood said: “Obviously he’s a great of English cricket.” Ten minutes afterwards Steve Smith said: “He’s had a magnificent career and he’s still a quality player.” The pride of lions lay basking in the sun, yawning, pretending not to notice the ageing antelope.

Cook will be the first opening batsman to clock 150 Tests. Ricky Ponting and Rahul Dravid batted at three but the others were embedded in the middle order, down to Steve Waugh at number six, shielded from the new ball and the responsibility to give their side a sound start. It is even more of an achievement that Cook has become the first opener to reach this landmark than that he has become the first England player.

“It’s a very special thing to pull on that hat. It’s a special thing to walk out and play for England, and that’s why I love doing it. I try my bollocks off really, it’s as simple as that and I’ll try to do that for as long as I can. It’s a very proud moment when you play for England whether it’s at the very start of your career or your last – I mean 150th – game. I didn’t mean that. That was a very bad slip of the tongue. I meant to say latter part of your career.” Most of all Cook is proud of playing 147 Tests in succession without being dropped or injured, second only to Allan Border (153).

Cook cites the extra net sessions he has been having in Perth as evidence that his hunger remains intact. But the burning issue is whether this will be his last Test series. “I’ve no idea,” was one of Cook’s replies to a question about his plan for retirement. “I genuinely have no idea,” was another.  So, no targets - whereas only a few years back he was intent on becoming England’s leading Test century-maker and run-scorer.

Since Cook gave up the captaincy he has scored that 243 against West Indies in the pink-ball Test at Edgbaston with the old imperturbable stubbornness. In his other 16 innings he has scored 391 runs. “I’ve really enjoyed it,” he said about being back in the ranks where his focus is now on getting through the first hour and giving England a start. “It doesn’t get easier mentally,” he admitted. “You still start on nought.”

One explanation for his diminishing returns - since his Test average reached its peak of 50 in December 2012 it has dropped a point per year - is that the analysts have worked out how to bowl at him: nothing on his legs. So it takes him longer to accumulate the same number of runs as before, and more mental energy.

Another explanation is that Cook has not changed his game. He plays the same three shots as when he arrived in Nagpur for his Test debut aged 20: the cut, the clip through midwicket, and the hook or pull - plus a cover-drive when on song. It is the other side of the stubbornness coin. He was never compelled to evolve - he did not play T20 and was fired as England’s one-day captain at Christmas 2014 - yet the game has.

If cricket were chivalrous, as some would have it, the Australian players would applaud Cook to the crease through a guard of honour and give him one off the mark. But if Ashes cricket has ever been chivalrous, which is questionable, it is not now. Cook’s 100th Test was at the Waca, back in 2013-4, and in the second innings he was bowled for a first-ball duck.

In his dealings with his successor, Cook has maintained the highest standards, as Joe Root acknowledged: “At the start of the summer he was very wary of stepping on my toes and making sure he didn’t feel like he was overshadowing me or getting too involved. I think throughout this trip he has really come into that senior player role very well.

“It’s not just chats with me, it’s the whole group, and a lot of the time it is led by him because of his vast experience and knowledge about batting, which is great and that’s how it should be. It’s not that he has stood off or waited... he is desperate to win, for all of us to be successful. Now he’s not captain, he’s not just looking after himself – ‘I can score my own runs and I’ll just chill out.’ He wants everyone to come away from this trip having done something special.” But it is some handicap to have three specialist batsmen out of five who do not know what it is to make a Test hundred.

And the lions are biding their time. The Waca is flatter than it was, but no pitch is flat if the bowling is 150kph. Local knowledge - the length to bowl, how to leave the ball on length, how to slip-catch with fingers pointing up - is so vital that a composite XI might not include any England player if Root refused to bat at three. This may not be “the biggest game of our lives” as Cook said, but it would be the biggest, the most surprising, victory if England pegged it back to 2-1.