We need to stay calm, warns Cook

England captain wants players to get over thrashing.

England captain Alastair Cook has urged his side against letting their second One-Day International loss to India weigh in on their minds, according to Sky Sports.

Cook reasoned that the players needed to show some perspective and avoid panicking over one poor result, especially one that came on the back of a decent performance in the series-opening win in Rajkot.

“Clearly, it’s been tough but you have to remember that it’s one game of the series,” said Cook. “The danger is to have that little ‘here we go again’ moment and we can’t let that happen. One of the skills we need is to be able to stay calm. We’ve won one match and lost one so it’s set up the series nicely, but clearly we’ve got some work to do.”

The captain commended his counterpart, MS Dhoni, for his role in the hosts’ winning performance.



“Clearly it’s very tough when you’ve got people like Dhoni in at the end. He’s probably the best player in the world in those situations, in these conditions. He does it time and time again. He’s incredibly hard to bowl at and it’s very hard to stop him on these flat pitches. Hopefully, one day we can produce a bit of magic to get him out.

“He’s obviously a key player for them and he’s delivering at the moment.”

Dhoni pleased with Jadeja’s feats

Meanwhile, Dhoni praised the all-round performance of man of the match Ravindra Jadeja and said his ability to score runs was crucial for taking off some pressure from the middle-order.

“It was a very important innings not only for him but for the side also,” said Dhoni. “He has done well as a bowler and scored runs once in a while. It is important for him to get runs because it eases the pressure on the middle-order. He is capable of hitting big sixes and he did that today. Overall, I am very happy with his performance.”

Jadeja, on his part, attributed his success to his experience of playing in the same ground for the now defunct IPL franchise, Kochi Tuskers Kerala.

“I knew this wicket and knew it was going to be a bit slow,” said Jadeja. “But once you get in, you can score runs. I enjoyed my batting. Also, Dhoni kept telling me not to throw my wicket away.

Published in The Express Tribune, January 17^th, 2013.