Former cricketer Sir Alastair Cook on Monday sent a stern warning to India captain Rohit Sharma after his team beat England in the second Test in Visakhapatnam.
India beat England by 106 runs to level the five-match Test series 1-1.
Sir Alastair Cook, talking about the match on sports channel TNT Sports, said India would be relieved to win the second game as they were under pressure.
He added that the visitors failed to prevail as their batters did not play match-winning knocks.
“India will be relieved more than anything. They were under the cosh after the first Test,” Sir Alastair Cook was quoted by cricket website Cricket Addictor in its report. “England lost the game because not one of their batsmen had a match-winning innings. That is what they’ll look back at. Scores of 30-70 don’t win Test matches…
“England have got close here without any hundreds. They’ll be disappointed. There will definitely be things that England will take from this game, though. This Indian side can definitely be beaten again.”
He said Joe Root adapting to England’s ‘Bazball’ strategy is the reason for his failures.
“He [Joe Root] sees all these other people playing these aggressive shots, which suit their style. Rooty has got 11,500 Test runs, he’s brilliant, but he’s so desperate to fit into what Ben [Stokes] and Brendon [McCullum] are doing that sometimes I don’t think he gets his balance of attack and defense right,” he said.
He concluded, “He’s England’s best batsman there’s ever been in all formats – but he does struggle sometimes with the tempo of this Bazball era.”
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