From the Ashes: Alastair Cook on the ups and downs against Australia

From the Ashes is a series of reports and podcasts that delve into the stories of pain, despair and sometimes triumph in the fiercest and most legendary test series in cricket.

Few people have known more modern Ashes in England history than Alastair Cook.

During a 12-year international career , Cook played each of the 35 possible Ash Tests, scoring more points than any player on either side.

Only Archie MacLaren, at the turn of the last century, has led England in more Ashes Tests than Cook's 15 as skipper. In England's famous 2010-11 win, Cook lost 14 of the other 15 Tests he played in Australia, including the 5-0 sweep in 2013-14 as captain.

In England he has never lost in three series and is one of three English skippers to have won more than 'an Ashes at home.

Opener Cook made his mark against the Australians before he even played for the England, scoring 214 at 20 for Essex against a side who were close to drawing the fifth Test of the iconic summer of 2005, losing the ballot box for the first time in 16 years.

Eighteen months later, he was part of an England side feeling the brunt of Australian revenge .

Although Cook made his first hundred ashes in Perth, a team containing Shane Warne, Glenn McGrath, Adam Gilchrist and Ricky Ponting collected the urn in devastating fashion, hammering Andrew Flintoff's men 5-0.

"I watched Ricky Ponting win a hundred in Brisbane and I thought 'I didn't think you could play this well,'" Cook, 38, told BBC Sport.

"My girlfriend (now wife, Alice) and her dad were there, my mom and dad were there. At the end of the show, they were going to have dinner, but I couldn't. I just said "no, I don't want to go out". I sat in my room. I didn't want to face people because I felt embarrassed."

Cook, however, went through a time when the Ashes urn traveled many thousands air miles. The next time Australia visited the UK in 2009, one of the smallest trophies in world sport changed hands again.

In the litmus test at The Oval, Cook was on the court short-legged when he took the game-winning hold to dismiss Mike Hussey from the bowling of Graeme Swann. /p>

"A friend of mine, Ian Elliott, with whom I played club cricket in Malden, m texted me that morning and said 'if you catch the ball, put it in your pocket,'” Cook says. "When I took the plug, the subconscious took over and I had the presence of mind to put it in my pocket.

"Swanny fought me over it in the locker room at The Oval, but I'm obviously much stronger and he didn't stand a chance. The Lord's Museum asked me if I wanted to donate it. I think it says "offered by Graeme Swann and Alastair Cook", but it's definitely my ball and not his."

Cook averaged less than 25 in this 2009 series, with a high score of 95 - all of his five hundred ashes left home.

"Participating in the victory was very special, but there was a burning desire for something else," he says.

"Jimmy Anderson and I sat in the locker room at the Oval and we both said 'don't...