England skipper Alastair Cook couldn’t hide his glee after guiding his team to a 10-wicket win over India in the second Test here on Monday. Speaking to the media, the Essex left-hander lauded the entire team for showing a lot of character after getting completely outplayed in the first Test at Ahmedabad.
Excerpts:
On his feeling after winning: Incredible efforts from all the lads, simply great after last week’s heavy defeat at Ahmedabad. We could have let our heads drop down. We came here, worked hard in the nets and we did what we needed to do to win the game. One of the great games I’ve been involved with playing for England.
On Kevin Pietersen’s innings: That’s why you want him in the team. There’s not many in the world who can bat like him. He was the difference between the two teams. If you want to be hard, you probably needed a few more from him in the end. That’s probably being hard (smiles).
On losing toss: Yes. I would have liked to win the toss. But again, it’s how well you play. That first day was very important. We got six wickets. Ashwin and Pujara fought hard and got a very good partnership. It could have been a far better day if we had managed to get one of them out. But it was a tough loss in Ahmedabad and the England dressing room was a tough place to be in after that loss. Everyone said about us not being able to play spin and to turn it around so quickly, it’s incredible. It proves that the work that we are doing is great work. We are not perfect yet though.
On whether the turnaround has taken him by surprise: Not at all. I’ve been watching how hard we have been working in the nets. What is nice though is to be rewarded for that. We are nowhere near perfect yet. But it’s encouraging to see the results this week. And for the three lions, some early nights will be what the doctor ordered.
On the shifting of momentum: I don’t know. We’ve got two games to go now and it’s level. It’s been a really good performance, but we won’t get carried away. We are going to enjoy the victory. Test matches in India take a lot out of us. But when we get to Kolkata we will train with the same purpose and intensity that we did here.
On whether England have cracked the spin code: I don’t think it’s anything about cracking or stuff like that. We will continue to look to improve.
Andy Flower and me have said that before too. We will get a lot of belief from this win. There will be tough times, of course.
On the performance of England and Indian spinners: Monty and Swanny…the way they bowled yesterday afternoon was magnificent. They knew that they were the guys who had to perform and they had to take the wickets. They fronted up to that challenge. Everyone expected them (Indian spinners) to bowl well on that wicket, and they probably were under pressure to perform.
