More than the disappointment that he missed his triple century by just six runs England opener Alastair Cook is ‘thrilled’ at making 294 runs against India in the third Test at Edgbaston here today.
On the back of Cook’s mazing knock, England scored a massive 710 for seven declared in their first innings. He had resumed from his overnight score of 182 runs.
“It’s taken almost 13 hours of hard work to get to that opportunity to make 300. When you don’t do it, it’s going to have a little of disappointment. But I’m thrilled that I actually scored 294 runs rather than the six I didn’t get,” said Cook, who scored his personal best in all forms of cricket today.
England is in the driver’s seat but Cook wasn’t yet taking anything for granted.
“There’s a lot of hard work to do tomorrow. But if we are patient like we have been and bowl like we know we can do, we’ll put India under a lot of pressure.
“We’re favourites but it doesn’t make you win. The wicket is still playing well, you could see that how people got in so it can’t be that bad. But if we keep doing our basics well, I’m sure we will create nine opportunities in two days.”
Both Cook and England batted rather grimly today and didn’t score quickly which the England opener put down to slowness of the track.
England didn’t score quickly yesterday but the opener put the blame on the slowness of the track.
“The old ball made it quite hard to score. There were quite defensive fields-and the pitch was a little bit slower to dominate. I don’t think anyone found it easy to hit through the line.
“But there’s such a long time left in the game. When you bowl a side out in two sessions, you can bat as long as you want. We knew the wicket wasn’t going to get any better and we wanted to make the most of that by batting when it was at its’ best,” Cook said.
Giving credit to England’s batting coach and his mentor Graham Gooch, Cook said, “As a side, we’ve got six double-hundreds since 2010, which is a tribute to the way we bat. He’s quite happy, quite proud. But I’m sure he’ll be throwing at me in the morning-put an innings to bed and move on.”
Cook showed admirable patience and stamina to bat for 13 hours and he said he wasn’t too tired.
“That’s why you do the fitness work, to allow you to do it, and then the mental concentration is something you pick up over time. I felt a little bit leggy, more tired last night-but today I am fine.”
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