Sir Viv Richards hails England’s top order – Cricket News Update
West Indies batting great, http://www.senore.com/Cricket/Isaac-Vivian-Alexander-Richards-c64548, on Tuesday lavished praise on the Alastair Cook-led top order of England, saying that their formidable batting line up can rip apart any world class bowling attack on their day.
“Alastair Cook has been solid and when he gets in he goes on and makes big hundreds,” the legendary Caribbean cricketer told
BBC Sport yesterday. “Strauss has been out of nick for some time, but has found some form back in this particular series,” he added further.
http://www.senore.com/Cricket/Middlesex-c817 star scored back-to-back Test centuries in the opening
two Tests (122 at Lord's and 141 at Trent Bridge), to regain his form and silence critics. The opening batsman finished as the leading run-scorer for England with a tally of 326 runs from five innings, the second highest overall, just behind West Indies' Marlon
Samuels, who scored 386 runs from an equal number of innings.
Sir Richards, the veteran of 121 Tests and 187 One Day Internationals, also heaped praise on top-order batsman Ian Bell for his impressive show in the recently concluded Test series.
“I'm impressed with http://www.senore.com/Cricket/IR-Bell-c1597 - he has come on in leaps and bounds. He looks to have both feet on solid ground as far as performing at this level is concerned,” said the former West Indies skipper, who covered the series as a pundit for BBC Test Match Special,
in his end-of-term report.
With the 2-0 series win over http://www.senore.com/Cricket/ICC-World-Cup-2011-c100625 Test rankings, however, their World No. 1 status will once again be on the line when they play a second-ranked South Africa side in a three-Test series at home.
The West Indies batting great feels recent limited-overs retiree, http://www.senore.com/Cricket/KP-Pietersen-c1806 will be the difference against the Proteas.
“If he (Pietersen) is firing well, he can take any attack apart and that is what great batsmanship is about. If he can do that against http://www.senore.com/Cricket/South-Africa-c757, England are in with a great chance,” reckoned the former West Indies skipper.
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