Though seen as Peter May's natural successor, Cowdrey failed to hold onto the England captaincy for any length of time as he suffered a number of inconvenient injuries. Gall-stones in 1962 gave the captaincy to Ted Dexter, a broken arm to Mike Smith in 1963 and a ruptured Achilles tendon to Ray Illingworth in 1969, and in each case the temporary replacement was retained after Cowdrey had recovered. It was a great disappointment to him that he never led the MCC tour of Australia despite six tours there, four times as vice-captain. After losing the First Test against Australia in 1968 he won 1 and drew 6 of the next 7 Tests, which Illingworth extended to a record run of 27 Tests without defeat until the last Test of 1971.