Image courtesy of: Zimbio
“We haven’t decided on our batting line-up”
England captain Alastair Cook has revealed that he may consider reshuffling the national team’s batting line-up in order to accommodate some of the newcomers.
The other reason Cook is pondering over whether he should change the batting order is due to the fact that he does not want England to lose early wickets, which became a habit for them during the last Ashes series this summer.
Cook and Joe Root opened the batting for England during the last Ashes series, but former Australia spin king Shane Warne recently stated that he believes Root should be demoted down the order so that Michael Carberry can replace him as an opener.
Responding to Warne’s comments, Cook said: “Joe is a fantastic player. I think anyone who saw his 180 at Lord’s and his hundred against New Zealand can see the class he has got. He has been outstanding in all forms of the game and being able to bat in any situation is one of his greatest strengths. Whether he’s batting at six against New Zealand or heads up the rate in the one-day game, I don’t think I have seen a younger player adapt to a situation as well as he does as quickly as he does. He’s a pretty unflappable guy.
“We haven’t decided on our batting line-up. It’s very different to 2010-11 where we came here very clear what our full strength side was and on that tour we played the first two warm-up games as that Test match XI. In this situation circumstances are different. We are unsure of pretty much two places and it’s exciting because everyone in the squad knows that and watching that competition grow, if someone grabs that opportunity he is going to find himself in a good place.”
If Cook were to open with Carberry and drop Root down to the sixth spot, it would leave Jonny Bairstow, Gary Ballance and Ben Stokes battling against each other to occupy the one final spot remaining on the roster.
Meanwhile, Cook also noted that England have to make quicker starts while batting in Australia due to the fact that high scores are a normal occurrence in the Land Down Under.
He added that the bowlers also have to pick up early wickets since the Kookaburra ball tends to lose its shine and ability to swing much quicker than the Dukes ball used in England does.
“Especially with the Kookaburra ball it’s a situation we can’t allow to happen again,” Cook said. “Sometimes in England with overhead conditions that does happen. In Australia the bigger scores do happen and we know that is an area of major improvement we needed to do coming into the series.”