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30 July
2008 Cook Unfazed
By Lack Of Hundreds Alastair Cook
will enter Wednesday's third npower Test against
South Africa refusing to panic about his lengthy
run without scoring a century, as reported by
Ladbrokes. The 23-year-old
Essex left-hander found the transition from the
county game to international cricket relatively
easy after scoring seven centuries in his first 24
Tests. But as he
prepares to play his 33rd Test for England this
week, Cook is facing the first potential crisis of
confidence since making his debut against India in
Nagpur two years ago. He has not scored
a century since hitting 118 against Sri Lanka in
Galle last December and, more frustratingly still,
he has passed 50 four times in that period without
being able to convert into three
figures. Cook, though, is
remaining philosophical about his recent run of 13
innings without a century as he strives to help
England bounce back from their 10-wicket defeat in
the second Test at Headingley at Edgbaston this
week. "It's
disappointing to say the least," admitted Cook.
"Graham Gooch always told me the first 50 is always
the hardest and after that it should get easier.
It's frustrating for me at the moment because I
keep getting out and not getting hundreds. I've
always scored hundreds so far in my career as an
Essex and England player, so I'm not worrying too
much about it." Cook was one of
the few batsmen who could leave Headingley with his
head held high after battling for over four hours
for 60 during England's doomed attempt to save the
game. Bet now at
Ladbrokes England's
performance at Headingley, when they were outplayed
in almost every session by South Africa, was in
stark contrast to their stunning display when they
dominated the first three days of the opening Test
at Lord's. But they have
attempted to resolve the dramatic change in
performance with a meeting of the whole squad at
Edgbaston on Monday prior to their practice
session. "At Lord's we got
600 so you don't become a bad batting unit
overnight," said Cook. "We didn't play that well as
a batting unit at Headingley in the first session,
but sometimes you do make mistakes and don't play
as well and the challenge is to bat a lot better.
We didn't play well from number one to number 11
and when you don't play well and don't win a
session then you lose the game. We've addressed
that at the meeting yesterday morning and hopefully
we can play better that this week. We chatted about
what we did well at Lord's and what we didn't do
well at Headingley and how we're going to have to
bounce back and hopefully it's in this side to do
that." England's main
dilemma is once again whether to go into the Test
with five bowlers, which would mean they had to
choose between Steve Harmison and Stuart Broad for
the final place, or recall Paul Collingwood to
stiffen the batting and rely on four
bowlers. They are unlikely
to make a final decision on their line-up until
they have monitored the fitness of Nottinghamshire
left-arm seamer Ryan Sidebottom, who missed the
last Test with a back strain. Bet now at
Ladbrokes |
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