India v England: Alastair Cook demands batting improvement
Last updated on .From the section Cricket
England captain Alastair Cook admitted his team have to improve quickly after losing heavily again to India to slip 2-1 behind in the one-day series.
The tourists were bowled out for just 155, with India needing barely 28 overs to reach the modest target in Ranchi.
"We've got to be clear and start producing the goods out in the middle and not just talk about it," Cook said.
"We've got some quality players and if we want to win we need to stand up as batsmen and deliver."
Mahendra Dhoni asked England to bat first in the first international staged in his home town, the 42nd Indian venue for one-day internationals.
But England struggled to find any fluency, reaching only 34-1 after 10 overs, and soon losing key batsmen Kevin Pietersen and Ian Bell within three deliveries.
"It's kind of a catch 22 at the top there, it was moving around but you had to score - 230 wasn't going to be good enough because we knew it would flatten out," said Cook, who was the first man to fall, lbw for 17.
"We got it wrong, one of the skills you need is being able to judge a good score and we didn't get anywhere near it.
"It's an old cliche but partnerships are crucial for building big scores and when you lose wickets in clusters that puts the opposition on a high and you lose the momentum you've built up."
A second successive defeat for England dropped them to third in the rankings, a rapid decline after they consolidated their place at number one by scoring 325-4 in the first match in Rajkot and winning by nine runs.
"It's frustrating because you look back to Rajkot where we played really nicely and it's quite hard to explain why we haven't played well in these last two games.
"It's important we don't over-complicate it when we come to Mohali. We've all delivered before for England and it's a matter of taking it upon ourselves as a team, as the lucky 11 who go out there, to deliver the goods."
England's chief tormentor in Ranchi was gentle slow left-armer Ravi Jadeja, who took 3-19 including the wickets of Craig Kieswetter and Samit Patel within five balls.
"He bowled nicely and we've found him hard to score off as well," the England captain conceded.
"Credit to him, they're allowed to bowl well, and we've got to find a method, not just against him but against all their bowlers, to build a big score."
Dhoni, who hit the winning runs, said of international cricket's latest venue: "I've played a lot of cricket here. It's one of the best facilities... a fabulous stadium and fans who were excited about this game.
"Everything went well. It was a perfect script. It's important to take the positives out of each and every game and areas we needed to work on after the first game we made sure we worked on.
"We are gelling well as a unit. I think we'll take a lot of confidence from this game and we're looking forward to the next one."
The penultimate match of the series is another day-night encounter, and takes place in Mohali on Wednesday.
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Surely Cook is the one who has been doing all the talking? It's time someone pointed out to him that there is more to captaincy than scoring runs every now and then, and issuing statements of "the bleedin' obvious" to the media. Leadership and guile on the field come to mind.
There is a huge amount of cricket scheduled for England this year and a pragmatic approach is required.
India bowled England out. They prevented England getting to 200. They got to their score just over half way into their innings.
It's been a great day for India and they deserve credit too.
I suggest you re-read my posts before replying with such a stupid response. Whether they let their opposition score 300+ is completely irrelevant. We are talking about England's poor batting and whether we should "look into" their performance in the first ODI or not (when it was good enough). The person I was replying to said no because India "almost chased it".
I know what your point was. If hitting 300+ and defending it is not "good enough" then what is? Remember, our batting has been awful in the last two games so the first match shows we can hit 300+ on a good batting pitch.
And how did India "almost chase it"? They needed 50 odd off the last 5 overs or so and the game was effectively over after the penultimate ball of the innings.
"With due respect to England, I wouldn't take too much out of the first match victory in Rajkot for the simple fact that India almost chased it"
What a muppet!
Why do our batsmen opt for the 'pushy' approach against spin, which results in endless LBW's and close catches? Just play the ball and build runs at a steady rate, is it that hard?
Dismissals today were sloppy and summed up "giving your wickets away".
Unless England up their game considerably I can see a 4-1 series defeat.
Credit must go to India as well for their upped performances.