Cricket: England’s batting unit will struggle against Indian bowlers, says Alastair Cook
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Alastair Cook has conceded that the young English batting line-up will confront a significant test when they face Indian bowlers in the five-match series.
Former England skipper and opener Alastair Cook has figured that the Joe Root-drove English batting unit will struggle against a quality Indian bowling attack in the forthcoming five-match series. England's batting has been a significant reason for worry in the previous six months and Alastair Cook believes that they will be facing a humongous challenge against India.
England set up a hopeless batting show to go down against New Zealand in the new Edgbaston Test, accordingly surrendering the two-match series 1-0.
Alastair Cook in the Tuffers and Vaughan podcast expressed that England's young batting line-up would think that it’s intense against a quality Indian bowling attack.
“When the pressure comes on, this England batting unit doesn’t respond too well, they often collapse, when the game’s right on the money or when it becomes tough. It would be interesting to see how they cope with India. It will be a great challenge for them.”
Alastair Cook added that England has such a large number of unpracticed batsmen at the top and middle-order, which has been one of the main sources of their difficulties.
“We’ve also got to look at how many games these guys have played. Sibley 20, Burns 25, Crawley 14, Pope 19. So four out of the top five, take Joe Root out of it, have played less than 25 games. In a really seasoned Test side, you only want one player with under 20 games. You want everyone else with 50-60 Tests," he said.
“The England side which went to Australia in 2010-11 - myself, Struass, Trott at three, KP at four, Bell at five, Collingwood at six we had all played 50-60 Test matches. We had all gone through what Sibley, Burns, and Crawley are going through at this particular time,” he added.
Phil Tufnell trusts the hosts could get defeated by India if they don't take care of their batting line-up: “We were talking about Joe Root, in the 50-over game, being a situational player. I didn’t see any of that against New Zealand in those two Test matches. I still think there is a huge worry about the top three. Rory Burns is probably pretty much pinned in. But there are two or three spots lurking around. Ollie Pope short of runs, the likes of James Bracey came in, he was nervous. That batting order against that Indian bowling line-up will struggle, and they will need to do something about it because we could get blown away.”