According to Sir Alastair Cook, although India might be “relieved” to secure a victory in the Visakhapatnam Test on Monday, England may perceive the hosts as susceptible to another defeat.
Despite notable performances like Yashasvi Jaiswal’s double century, Shubman Gill’s century, and impressive spells of fast bowling from Jasprit Bumrah, India appeared less than secure in the second Test.
Many other Indian batsmen struggled to capitalize on their starts, and the bowling performances from Ravichandran Ashwin, Axar Patel, and Mukesh Kumar were inconsistent.
England failed to reach the final target of 399 runs but achieved a score of 292, marking one of the highest fourth-innings totals by a visiting team in Tests in India.
“India will be relieved more than anything. They were under the cosh after the first Test,” Cook said on TNT Sports.
“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 added.
It’s worth highlighting that the toss had a significant impact on both Tests. Ben Stokes won the toss in the first game, putting India under pressure in the fourth innings, and a similar scenario unfolded in Visakhapatnam where the hosts won the toss.
“Joe Root finds it challenging to adapt to the pace of the current era in cricket”- Sir Alastair Cook
The ex-English captain discussed Joe Root’s batting challenges in the series and highlighted the reasons behind the team’s leading run-scorer accumulating only 52 runs across four innings, a total even less than Rehan Ahmed.
“He 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 in to what Ben [Stokes] and Brendon [McCullum] are doing that sometimes I don’t think he gets his balance of attack and defense right,” Cook said.
“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,” he added.
The third Test of the series is scheduled to begin in Rajkot on February 15.
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