Wednesday, 22 February 2012

England Cooking with 4-0 Series Win


England one-day captain Alastair Cook described his side's efforts against Pakistan as "brilliant" and revealed he will be staying on for the Twenty20 games against the same opponents.

Cook's men sealed a 4-0 series win with Tuesday's four-wicket win in Dubai.

He said: "It was a brilliant effort. We handled the pressure against four spinners on a spinning wicket.

"I'm staying on for the T20s. There are a couple of injuries to batsmen with a bit of concern over Ravi Bopara."

England's victory was all the more impressive because they made four changes with Danny Briggs, Jos Buttler, Jade Dernbach and Tim Bresnan all playing for the first time in the series.

Cook added: "The guys who played were desperate to prove a point to get into the team and it was a really good team effort. We have to look ahead.

"It was great to see Jade back in the side and Tim back. Without our senior bowlers, I thought [restricting Pakistan to] 230-odd was a really good effort."

Having bowled out Pakistan for 237, England had to recover from 68-4 and did so thanks to a 109-run stand between Kevin Pietersen (130) and Craig Kieswetter (43).

England skipper Cook, who scored two centuries in the series, said: "It was great to see that 100 partnership. It was Kieswetter's first real opportunity to show what he could do under pressure and he played very well and, obviously, it was a fantastic knock by Kevin.

"We always talk about one of the top four scoring runs and he did it last game as well.

"It's a pleasure to watch KP bat like that, we talked about the top order scoring the runs and to have four hundreds in a series is a credit to the guys."

Pietersen said: "It's probably the best knock I've ever played in one-day cricket. The calmness of the chase, not getting flustered - I enjoyed it.

"One-day hundreds are hard to get. We picked our bowlers that we wanted to target - which we don't normally do in the England team.

"I've always said that, when I'm not playing well, I'll get criticised but that's the nature of the beast. I'll never stop working hard. I'll never stop trying. I just want to enjoy my cricket."