http://www.senore.com/Cricket/Alastair-Nathan-Cook-c42852 expresses concerns about England’s batting line-up – Cricket News Update
Alastair Cook, the newly appointed ODI captain of http://www.senore.com/Cricket/Sri-Lanka-c758, as the English lost two matches in a row.
The Lankans lead the 5-match series 2-1 while the fourth ODI is set to be played at Nottingham on July 6, 2011.
After winning the 2nd ODI by 69 runs, the tourists went on to claim the 3rd game by 6 wickets, yesterday at Lord’s.
In the second last match, the English batting department could not chase the target of 310 runs. The highest scorer was http://www.senore.com/Cricket/Eoin-Joseph-Gerard-Morgan-c56032 with 52 runs.
In the last encounter, the home team failed to post a http://www.senore.com/Cricket/Adam-Griffith-c919 target for the rivals. With Cook’s 119 off 143 balls, England piled up 246 in the given 50 overs.
The Sri Lankan team, consisting of a strong batting lineup and a varied bowling attack, has won both the games on the basis of their all-round performance.
The 4th ODI clash will definitely be a make-or-break match for the English and the skipper is worried about his side’s batting woes.
Cook stated today, “Our batting line-up hasn't fired, hasn't scored enough runs in the last two games. If we want to win games we're going to have to fire more consistently.”
Commenting on yesterday’s game, he told, “We had a bit of a slow start and lost a couple of wickets. Then me and KP [http://www.senore.com/Cricket/Kevin-Peter-Pietersen-c71169] had a good partnership but we just kept losing wickets at the wrong time and were then always playing re-building cricket.
That's never a way of getting a big score and we were probably about 40 http://www.senore.com/Cricket/Short-c90107. I thought 280 or 290 was defendable."
Despite the fact that the English team has some brilliant batsmen like http://www.senore.com/Cricket/Ian-Ronald-Bell-c63974, they have been unable to post and defend handsome targets in the series so far.
The ongoing ODI series is the first venture of Cook as a skipper and he is vying to win, in order to justify his leadership role.
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