IND vs ENG 2016, 1st Test: Confident We’ll Put India Under Pressure, Says Cook

Nov 13, 2016 at 10:52 PM

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IND vs ENG 2016, 1st Test: Confident We’ll Put India Under Pressure, Says Cook

After being severely criticised for their dismal performance against Bangladesh, England cricket team would be mighty pleased with their heroics against the world number one team in their own den. Virat Kohli’s men were on backfoot for the majority of the time during the match and somehow managed to draw the game on the final day of the first Test at Rajkot.

English skipper Alastair Cook expressed his disappointment over not winning the match but heaped lavish praise on his team for their brilliant performance.

Speaking to the media after the end of the match, Cook said:” It’s been a good five days for us. It’s been a hard five days. It’s not quite as humid as in Bangladesh but it’s been a tough Test. We’ve put everything on the line there and played some really good cricket. Four hundreds, our spinners bowled well and our seamers on a pretty slow wicket were outstanding. And we got ourselves in a position to force a result on Day 5. It’s disappointing not to get over the line but it was a great Test and everyone can be proud of the way they played.”

Resuming the day on 114 for 0, the English batsmen started the day in an emphatic manner and continued to dominate the Indian bowlers. They eventually declared their innings after scoring 260, setting India an improbable target of 310 runs. However, they were criticised for declaring their innings too late which killed any hope of getting a result from the match.

When Cook was asked whether his team could have declared earlier, he said: “Possibly. The reason behind it is, we just didn’t want to give India a sniff. Batting sometimes just to survive, knowing you’re never going to get the target, is a lot different to chasing 260-270. You just need one partnership. On the same wicket we were 180-0. It certainly wasn’t a minefield. The odd ball did a bit. Certainly with the pressure, you can afford to have men round the bat and you can grab those half chances. That’s the way I wanted to go. Not sure. Maybe a braver person would have set them 240. You never know. But I thought it was a fair declaration, especially in the first game of the series.”

The Rajkot pitch had uneven bounce throughout the match and the English captain said the track was strange.

It was very strange. A lot of balls were turning big but they weren’t getting that many wickets. Probably credit to the way the guys played the spin. It was a good Test wicket. Very contrary to what we thought we would get. Flat to start, a good toss to win and then turned more and more as the game wore on and became a bit uneven. You’ve got to play well enough to be in it. At the end and we were,” Cook said.

Before the beginning of the series, there were speculations all around that the visitors will struggle to counter the Indian spinners. However, Cook’s men proved everyone wrong and put up an inspiring display throughout the match. The match might have ended in a draw but it is no less than a moral boosting victory for the visitors.

When Cook was asked whether his team will take confidence from this match for the remainder of the series, he said:A brilliant performance all round. Especially from our three spinners who came in for a lot of criticism on a real turning wicket and this is a flatter wicket to bowl on and we bowled a lot better. Great to have Saqi[Saqlain Mushtaq] here. He’s made a massive difference for those guys. No-one was talking of us having a chance in this series but the way we played showed we’re in there. We have to rest up well. I’m feeling fairly jaded now and I think the lads are too. Doing 160 overs in the dirt in the first innings is fairly brutal. So we’ve got to rest up well but it shows in these Tests you can’t be off it for anything. Because the game can change very quickly late on. We were always on the good side of it in this game and we don’t want to find ourselves behind.”

It gives everyone a ‘we can play’. As a group, after what happened in Bangladesh, on very, very unusual wickets… if we start playing on those wickets then we’ll have to readjust – but on these wickets where it takes some time to turn and it’s generally flat to start with then I’m confident we’ll score the runs and confident we can bowl well enough to put India under pressure. If we hit the same standards as we’ve done there. It’s just about repeating it. It’s been bloody hard work, I can tell you that. We’ve got to rest up well,” he added.

Before the beginning of the final, a draw was looking like the most likely result. However, the English bowlers injected life into the match bu dismissing six Indian batsmen which made the match very interesting. When Cook was asked whether the match was a good advert for Tests, he said:“This is what Test cricket is about. The different circumstances you can play on, the different environments. As you say, going into that last hour, it was all to play for. That’s what makes it a great game and we might play on one of the wickets and it’ all over in 3 days and we’ll have to adjust to that. I thought it was a cracking wicket. It could have been half a day earlier when it started spinning for us, but you’d want to be on the right end of the toss.”

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