England Captain Alastair Cook credited the Indian batsmen Rohit Sharma and Suresh Raina after the pair guided the home team to a series clinching five-wicket victory in the fourth one day International in Mohali yesterday.
England Captain Alastair Cook credits Raina and Rohit for Indian win
England had earlier scored 257 for the loss of 7 wickets in the allotted 50 overs and Cook felt that the score was decent enough and was defendable, but the 68-run partnership between Rohit and Raina took the game away from them.
“With 260, we thought we were in the game. We needed couple of early wickets. But I thought the partnership between Raina and Sharma was important, they got the runs quickly,” he told reporters after the match.
Rohit, who came out to open the innings in place of Ajinkya Rahane , scored 83 runs and gave the hosts the ideal platform before Raina’s unbeaten 89 from 79 balls guided them home.
“I think that partnership between Raina and Rohit Sharma really (changed the game). When he (Raina) came in the momentum changed very quickly and we just tried to stop the scoring,” the English skipper later said on Sky Sports.
“But I thought we put on a good performance today, the conditions weren’t quite in our favour and to get it so close I thought we played quite well.”
Raina, though, did have a bit of luck on his side when he was caught at slip by Cook while batting at 41, but was relieved when the Umpire gave it a dead ball as the bowler Steven Finn had knocked the stumps down at the delivery stride while coming in to bowl.
Cook said that it was “frustrating” and admitted that “there was a little bit of confusion” regarding the dead ball as they thought Raina was out before the Umpire declared the ball dead. He also felt that the outcome of the game would have changed had they got Raina at that stage. This was the second time Finn was warned for a similar offence, the first time being in Kochi during the seond One-dayer.
England had earlier lost the toss and were put into bat by MS Dhoni. But, the English batsmen never really came to terms with the pitch although Cook and Pietersen both scored 76 and then Joe Root’s 57 off 61 deliveries helped the tourists add 100 runs in the last 10 overs.
“I think the toss was really an important factor today. We stuck in there with the bat and knew we could get runs, especially with Joe Roots there,” he said.
“Sometimes, you have to give credit to the opposition as well. They are a hard side to beat.”
The final ODI of the five-match series would be played in Dharamsala on 27th January but would be inconsequential as India have already won the series 3-1.
Tags: Alastair Cook, Captain, Cricket, England, India, Rohit Sharma, Suresh Raina
