India v England 2016: Alastair Cook Blames Toss For England’s loss at Vizag

Nov 21, 2016 at 6:53 PM

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India v England 2016: Alastair Cook Blames Toss For England’s loss at Vizag

The England skipper, Alastair Cook, has blamed the toss for determining the result of the game as Cook, during the post-match presser, said that toss does not guarantee any result. He had all praise for the Indian bowlers and has accepted the fact thatIndian team, led by Virat Kohli outplayed them in this Test. Still, Cook showed positive vibes and said that they have the power to come back strongly in the series.

Here is what England captain said in the post-match presser –

On if the toss wins the game…

It doesn’t guarantee any result. On these two wickets [Rajkot & Vizag], it’s been very advantageous to bat first. India fought hard and came out with a draw and we weren’t good enough to do it. Those five wickets on day two meant that we weren’t capable of getting close to their first innings score.

On the Indian bowlers…

They bowled well. They are good bowlers in these conditions. In Rajkot, we got over 700 runs. Here we made them really hard in that last innings. They are good bowlers. They are not supermen by any stretch of the imagination. They are a fine bowling attack but we showed in one game that we can score runs against them, with four players scoring hundreds. This game too, in the last innings, we made them work really hard for the wickets.

It’s a disappointing loss but if we can get ahead of the game then we can put India under pressure. We just got to earn that right to do it. We are still very much in the series. A couple of good tosses will help that, there’s no doubt about that.

On replicating their performance of 2012 tour 

What’s giving me belief in actually over 10 days of cricket is that we have competed very well in India, in their conditions. Yes, we have lost this game by a big margin. But the margin of runs is different. We could have played more aggressively and lost by 150 runs or so. But we went that way. It was a massive toss to lose but in certain periods of this game, we played some good cricket.

If you took Virat Kohli’s runs out of the game — I know you can’t do that — but we have put their batters under a lot of pressure. Adil Rashid has been excellent in these two games, a real step up for him. Broady [Stuart Broad] bowled really well. Jimmy [James Anderson] is good on his comeback. So a lot of good things. We have got to put the whole game together to beat India. If we can get ahead of them in Mohali, then we can put pressure on them.

On Jos Buttler being considered for the third Test in place of Ben Duckett… 

I think he is. Certainly, something that the selectors will have a look at. It’s hard cricket in your first few games. The difference, I think, is probably quite stark from playing in Northampton to playing here. Suddenly every innings is scrutinised. That’s the nature of the beast. Suddenly this technical flaw – whether it’s a technical flaw or not – people are aware of it and there’s no doubt it affects guys. Ben is a really talented cricketer and I think we’ll see a lot more of him in an England shirt. Whether he plays in Mohali or not, the selectors will have to take a call on that. But he’s been working incredibly hard. He’s the first in the nets this morning, last night. He’s working hard on his game, and whatever decision, we’ll see Ben Duckett scoring a lot of runs. He’s too talented a player not to.

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