The former England captain Sir Alastair Cook has pointed out the flaws in the batting line-up of England in the third Test match of England’s tour of India 2024.
Sir Alastair Cook on England’s batting
England have been struggling in the third test of the tour. India set up a huge score of 445 against the visitors in the first innings where Indian captain Rohit Sharma and Ravindra Jadeja were impressive with their bats.
England ended day 02 with 207 runs losing only 2 wickets. With the trail of 238 runs, England scored 319 runs losing all 10 wickets in their first innings.
On this occasion, Cook commented on England’s poor show with the bat and highlighted the need to be good in the long format.
Cook said, “My shout [from yesterday] of ‘they could score 800 tomorrow is not looking too good – I’m only 481 off. Is it an opportunity lost?
England have been poor with the bat – they’ve lost eight wickets for 116 today and you don’t win many matches when you collapse like that in the first innings.
“To win Test matches you have to be good for such long periods of time. India were poor yesterday but they’ve been very, very good today.”
England’s Ben Duckett had played a dominant innings where he smashed a total of 153 runs.
But other batters continued to have poor runs and the former England cricketer commented on their innings saying, “You have to question if it was tactically right to play that shot. You’ve got Bumrah, who is India’s best bowler, and Root has struggled against playing him.”
“When he played it in the Ashes on the first ball on day three at Edgbaston, we didn’t mind because it was about getting runs.
“But in this series, when all the wickets have been in the first 30 minutes of play, it was the wrong time to play it.”
Coming to the match, India started their second innings of the match when Rohit Sharma and Rajat Patidar lost their wickets while Yashasvi Jaiswal scored 104 runs before retiring hurt.
Shubman Gill has also been impressive with the bat as he smashed 65* runs by the end of the day 03.
Joe Root and Tom Hartley bagged a wicket each. India scored 196 runs by the end of day 03 at Saurashtra Cricket Association Stadium.
