England might have lost the Test series against India earlier this year, former England captain Alastair Cook has said that the situation will be different this time. Notably, England started the season well with an impressive series win in Sri Lanka and then went 1-0 up away from home against India as well.
But, then they lost the series against India and then lost 1-0 in a two-match Test series to New Zealand recently as well.
“Clearly it was disappointing. England have got themselves in a tough situation for the winter. It was going so well, winning in Sri Lanka and then they’re 1-0 up against India,” Cook told ESPNCricinfo. “To then rest and rotate players, ever since that moment they’ve ended up chasing their tail – ending up with a fifth-choice wicketkeeper (James Bracey), an unbalanced side even though people were playing the (T20) Blast.”
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“You’ve got a Test captain who hasn’t been able to play his best side, yet we seem to be playing a full-strength side in the T20s against Sri Lanka. The decisions don’t look like they’ve been made correctly. Of course, they’re trying their best to make the right decisions for the right reasons, but when you’re playing for England, you get judged on end results most of the time, so you’d have to say it hasn’t worked,” he further added.
“I genuinely feel sorry for Joe Root because he hasn’t had his best players available. You can’t buy that experience of guys like Ben Stokes, Jos Buttler, Jonny Bairstow, Moeen Ali. Those kind of players make a big difference. When you look at it in isolation, it doesn’t make that much sense what happened, but how they got there you can kind of half understand. It’s been a tough one, and they just got found out against a better team in that New Zealand series,” said Cook.
Alastair Cook has also said that Team India will face trouble in their upcoming series against England regardless of England’s poor form. And, defeating them at home will be tough too. Currently, India are taking on New Zealand in the inaugural edition of the World Test Championship (WTC) as well.
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“It will be a better side with the players coming back against India. They’ll clearly be better balanced which, I think, is a massive issue for them and forced some strange selections against New Zealand, like no spinner on a dry wicket. India have shown how good they are at the moment because they’re in the World Test Championship final but, over five Test matches in England, England are hard to beat at home, and I’m expecting a very tight battle,” concluded Alastair Cook.
