England might have taken an unassailable 2—0 lead in the one—day series against India, but captain Alastair Cook feels his team’s performance in the last two games has not been up to the mark.
“You get judged by results and we have won but we didn’t play well in the last couple of games even though we managed to get the right results,” said Cook on the eve of the final one—dayer here on Friday.
“In the last couple of games, we have been in good positions. But in the end overs, Dhoni and Raina played very well and made it hard for us. Also one of our top batter needed to stick around, as Ravi (Bopara) did,” he added.
Despite the 2—0 advantage in the series, Cook said he had to deal with a lot of pressure while watching his team stumble at times during the one—day series.
“When you play a lot of high—pressure tournaments, you get used to dealing with those situations. It’s stressful watching from the dressing room when you can’t do anything.
But we have made some good progress in the last couple of years,” he said.
One of the areas where England appeared to have struggled is facing the Indian spinners in the one—day series and the hosts today played against the spin—bowling machine in the middle this afternoon to hone their skills.
“I think we’ve played them okay. It’s always said how much spin is a challenge for England batters but in the last few years we have made big progress against spin. It’s an easy topic to talk about but then who said we can’t get any better.
“There’s talent in the squad. Seeing how we’ve trained, we know we have to improve as a side as we have a couple of tours in the sub—continent.
“We don’t play (spin) as bad as people talk about,” he added.
