Cook and co aim to salvage series after Dubai retreat
The England team will now look to salvage some pride after taking a five-day break in South-Asian golf city Dubai with their families and girlfriends. The team has suffered from the loss of some key players due to injury and are hoping for the comeback of pacer Stuart Broad for the fourth Test.
The break between the third and fourth Test must have been a god-send to the English team after their consecutive losses following a credible performance in the first Test of the India tour. While some players chose to travel back home, some English players, in a bid to let off some steam, travelled to South-Asian golf city Dubai with their families and girlfriends. Joe Root, Stuart Broad, James Anderson, Jos Buttler, and Ben Duckett were seen at the sunny metropolis in Dubai, relaxing and posing for pictures.
Before the break, English skipper Alastair Cook had termed the break as “much-needed” and said that they would come back with more refreshing mindset.
“The break has come at a good time after three back-to-back Test matches. Going to Dubai will mentally give us a break from cricket and we can come back more refreshed. The challenge now is to put in that performance consistently over five days, we have done it one game [in Rajkot] but we haven’t done it in the last two,” Cook had said before leaving for Dubai.
Injuries to some key players also
To fill in the void, the England team management has called upon the services of opener Keaton Jennings and all-rounder Liam Dawson. Dawson will join England's squad
The move to play four seamers and two spinners in the team had also backfired as they failed to keep the pressure on the Indians in crucial stages over the last Test. On the other hand, Indian skipper Virat Kohli exploited his resources admirably to dismantle the Englishmen.
But Cook is not supposed to change the tactics in the next game at Mumbai, which will turn from the day 2, as the curator suggested today.
Cook had earlier said, “If we had known what we do now we would have gone four seamers, two spinners. The seamers were always in the game with reverse, plus the way we bash length we can control the scoring rate very well. In hindsight, we would have played four but I am happy with my decision as I thought it was right at the time. We will have a look at that for Mumbai but it will probably bounce and turn. It usually does,” reported the Guardian.
The England team, which has problems galore to tackle, needs to put the past month behind them before taking on a rampant India in the fourth Test, starting December 8, in Mumbai, to keep the series alive.
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