Haren
Former England captain Alastair Cook on Thursday said that the England team which went down by 8 wickets to West Indies were not good enough whenever there’s no belting wickets on offer.
“With England’s batting in all three formats, on belting wickets they are absolutely brilliant and you can’t stop them scoring. When it becomes tougher and they need to adapt, I’m not sure at the minute that this group are good enough – taking Root out of it,” he said on TNT Sports.
“He is a class above in terms of adjusting. Everyone else needs to find a way to adapt better,” he added praising Root.
In the match, the West Indies cruised to an eight-wicket victory over an experimental England side in Antigua on Thursday in the rain-affected opener of their One-Day International series.
A week after the test team slumped to a series defeat in Pakistan, England named four ODI debutants for the first of three matches against the West Indies, and their rookie line-up laboured to a disappointing 209 all out from their innings.
The hosts made a fine start to their reply before a rain delay gave them a new target via the Duckworth–Lewis–Stern (DLS) method, one they strolled to with nine overs to spare.
Their pursuit was made easier thanks to a big-hitting 94 from Evin Lewis.
England get the chance to redeem themselves at the same Sir Vivian Richards Stadium on Saturday, before the third and final ODI of the series takes place in Barbados next Wednesday.
With England looking to improve on a record of 11 defeats in their last 17 ODIs, Jamie Overton, Dan Mousley, Jordan Cox and John Turner all earned their first caps for the tourists with several test-team big names rested at home.
England’s more experienced opening pair, Phil Salt and Will Jacks, got off to a positive start before both were removed by Jayden Seales inside the opening five overs.
(With agency inputs)
