The captain of the England Cricket team, Alastair Cook, has said that the pitch in the third ODI against India was a flat one and the England team should have put more runs on the board.
The English batting order failed for the second time in the series and managed to score only 155 runs in the third ODI against India which was played at HEC International Cricket Stadium Complex, Ranchi.
Cook looked frustrated in the post match press conference. When asked about his thoughts on the performance of the England team in the match, the England skipper said, “We got completely outplayed today. We didn’t perform well as a batting unit and that’s the main reason of our defeat today. It was a belter of a pitch and 155 was not a good total here. We needed to score at least 120 more runs to put the Indian batting line up under any sort of pressure.”
“It was really a tough ask for the bowlers. 155 was not a defendable total at that wicket. But, the bowlers tried hard and got a few wickets.”
When asked why the England bowlers are trying to bowl too many short deliveries, Cook said, “Everybody knows that a few Indian batsmen don’t like short pitched deliveries. So, we were just trying to bring them out of their comfort zone by banging a few balls short and had the luck favoured us, we could have got a few wickets on the short deliveries. A few top edges went over the keeper. Those shots could have gone anywhere. We had plans for each Indian batsman and we were just trying to execute those plans.”
The fourth ODI match between India and England will be played at Punjab Cricket Association Stadium, Mohali.