Former England national cricket team captain Alastair Cook has issued a major warning to the Ben Stokes-led team, saying that they are going to experience a slow death in the fifth and final Test of the series against the England national cricket team. India.
Cook’s warning came after the Three Lions’ poor performance in the series concluding Test match, which is currently taking place at the picturesque Himachal Pradesh Cricket Association Stadium in Dharamsala.
England came into the Dharamsala clash having lost three matches in a row against India, which ultimately resulted in the series defeat for the visitors. However, they have everything at stake in the Dharamsala Test as crucial ICC World Test Championship points are at stake.
Meanwhile, England won the toss and elected to bat first in the match. The decision was a good one considering the conditions, but the English batsmen could not make use of it and were bowled out for 218 in just 57.4 overs.
Zak Crawley top-scored his team with 79 runs to his name and the fact that England were bowled for a low score was a huge disappointment to former cricketers who criticized the visitors. The batsmen managed to deal with the Indian pacers but the spinners, Kuldeep Yadav and Ravichandran Ashwin, proved too dominant for them.
England has no return to the match – Alastair Cook
After defeating England by a low score, Team India’s top-notch batting unit shined and batted with a positive approach. Seeing India gaining control of the match, England’s great batsman Alastair Cook said that Rohit Sharma & Co. are closing all avenues for the visitors to return and the Ben Stokes-led team will die a slow death. Speaking to TNT Sports, Cook said:
“He walked away from [England] yesterday and this is the icing on the cake for India. This is like ‘we’re closing all the doors and locking them.’ There is no way England are getting back into the game; They’re making sure that’s the case,” Cook said.
“In Test cricket it’s a slow death and England are going to experience that over the next few days unless something strange happens,” Cook said.
The hosts’ best performers in their first innings were captain Rohit Sharma and number 3 batsman Shubman Gill. Alastair Cook had huge praise for the batsmen and said:
“It has been a brilliant partnership between these two; Gill in particular has been very aggressive this morning. Rohit has just stabilized at a hundred and realizes that you don’t have much chance of signing up for a Test hundred. “It has been hard work for the English players.”
Notably, Rohit Sharma and Shubman Gill joined forces after Yashasvi Jaiswal’s dismissal and together drove England out of the game. They scored runs at a rapid pace and punished the English bowlers from time to time. Rohit Sharma ended his innings with a score of 103 runs while Gill scored 110 runs. Together, the duo added 171 runs in 244 balls.