England cricketer Alastair Cook says, there will be no second thoughts or dramatic recalls following his decision to retire.
On Monday, Cook announced his retirement from international cricket after the end of the ongoing series with India.
In an interview with Sky Sports, the 33-year-old admitted, it is a tough call to say ‘never again’.
“No, I’m retiring and that’s it,” he said. “It is final. I have done my bit.”
The Essex left-hander is England’s all-time leading Test run-scorer with 12,254 at 44.88 including 32 hundreds while his run of 159 consecutive Test appearances is a world record.
However, the batsman admitted he was emotional when he broke the news of his retirement to his team-mates last weekend.
“There was a little bit of silence, then Mo (Moeen Ali) said something, everybody laughed and it was forgotten about.”
When asked if he had considered requesting a sabbatical to reassess his game, Cook said: “It did cross my mind briefly, as the decision became clear in my mind.”
“But if you are looking over the last two or three years, I haven’t played a huge amount of games, and I’ve never felt that getting on another plane has been the struggle,” he said.
“It’s hard to put it into words, but over the last six months there have been signs in my mind that this (retirement) was going to happen.”
He added, he will not be emotional when he walks out to bat in his last match against India starting tomorrow.
“You just don’t know what reaction you’ll get from the crowd, but I’ll just be focused on getting some runs. It will be slightly strange but I’ll just try to enjoy the week,” he said.
“We’ve still got a game to win for England, so I want to approach it the same way as other games, but obviously knowing it will be my last.”
