The way his batsmen endured against the Indian bowling attack clinched the issue for England, felt its captain Alastair Cook. Having seen the visitor to a 2-1 lead ahead of the concluding Test at Nagpur, Cook said he expected his team to drive the hard work to a proper conclusion.
Saying that England had a proper build-up to the series, Cook congratulated the team for applying itself well on the field. “We put a lot of hard work. What we have done really is take what we did in the nets out in the middle and perform close to our potential,” Cook said.
High-skill bowling
“Our bowlers have been outstanding in that first innings. To restrict them (India) to 300 on that (Eden Gardens) wicket was a great effort. When we took six wickets in the second innings, it was high-skill bowling,” the England captain said praising his bowlers
When asked about his views on the Nagpur Test, he said he would love to take a draw if someone offered but it cannot happen that way. “We will definitely go for a win. You can’t go into that game with that (draw) mentality. We have to do the same as we have done in these last two games,” Cook said.
About his own performance with the bat, Cook, who was named the man-of-the-match, said contributing to the team’s cause was foremost in his mind. “I wouldn’t have known what the record was (7000 runs and 23 centuries). It’s great to have contributed to an amazing couple of games. Hopefully I can do it one more time,” he said.
When asked about England’s plan in the series, Cook said, “We just spoke about batting for long periods of time. There are not many people in world of cricket who could come to India and dominate the bowling the whole day. As a batting unit, we spoke about that a lot and we managed to deliver in the last couple of games.”
