Commentating during the rain delay on day four of the fifth Ashes Test, at the Kia Oval, Alastair Cook admitted to having contemplated a return to Test cricket after three years in retirement. Cook had bowed out in dream-like style, again at the Kia Oval in 2018, scoring a hundred in his final innings as England secured a 4-1 series win against India.

Speaking on BBC Test Match Special, Cook said: “I found my first year of commentating incredibly hard. I felt so emotionally attached to those players, really close. You’ve spent so many times and so many conversations together, I didn’t want to ever betray their trust. I didn’t want to talk ill of them because I know how hard it is.

“I had a two-week period, and I can’t remember when it was, after a couple of years when I had five recurring dreams in two weeks about making a comeback. Enough for me to tell Alice, Jimmy, Rooty and Broady about it. And that was a really strange couple of weeks.

“I randomly started running again at five in the morning. I rang Jimmy and I spoke to him. In the back of my mind it was always comebacks don’t go well and then Jimmy sent me 15 comebacks that went well.

“But then common sense prevailed because I started batting in the nets and thinking about it more in the nets and realising, it is different. The way I walked off at the Oval will never be beaten for me. It cannot be topped. The reason I stopped was because, for me, what else was there to really get excited for? A comeback, I think for me it would’ve been wrong. I think it would’ve put all sorts of unnecessary pressure on me in one sense and it might have been exciting for a little bit I suppose.”

Cook was the first English player to score 10,000 Test match runs and is still England’s leading run-scorer. He played 161 Test matches and scored 33 hundreds, finishing his career with an average of 45.35.

He captained England to victory in the 2015 Ashes series, and was player of the series in England’s Ashes win in Australia in 2010/11. In that series, he scored 766 runs with three centuries, including an unbeaten 235 in Brisbane.

“That is long passed,” said Cook on his comeback temptation. “It was two years ago. You can speak to every player who’s walked away from the game and they’ll say they don’t have any regrets but have I missed it? Absolutely, I’ve missed elements of it, because everyone knows when you retire it’s one of the great privileges going and battling with your mates for England and it’s all I’ve ever dreamed about.

“I think I’ve retired pretty well from the international game. I’ve accepted it and of course there are little moments but I’ve accepted my lot. So no, I don’t wish I was out there anymore. I don’t miss those constant nervy feelings or the failures brushed with a bit of success.”