Alastair Cook wants team-mates to show strong character

Alastair Cook wants team-mates to show strong character

England’s opener Alastair Cook believes his side should not give up hope against Pakistan in the ongoing Test at the Dubai International Cricket Stadium in United Arab Emirates (UAE).

Pakistan are in a strong position at the moment, gaining an overall lead of 180 runs with eight wickets remaining at the end of day two. They have reached a total of 222/2 in their second innings.

The Men in Green were bowled out for just 99 runs in their first outing. Asad Shafiq was the only batsman to make an impression, scoring 45 runs whereas the rest of the batting was below par.

However, the Poms were unable to take a big advantage of Pakistan’s first innings collapse, gaining a lead of 42 runs. The team’s skipper Andrew Strauss top scored with a half-century, but the rest of the batsmen failed to get going.

This allowed the hosts to bounce back in the match and they did so, despite losing a couple of early wickets. Openers Taufeeq Umar and Mohammad Hafeez got out without making a significant contribution, but veteran Younis Khan showed his class, scoring a
fabulous ton.

This was the first century of the three match Test series and Younis proved his worth to everyone. He is still unbeaten on 115 and has been partnered extremely well by youngster Azhar Ali, who is not-out on 75. The pair has scored a massive partnership of
194 and will look to continue their dominance on day three.

However, Cook wants his team-mates to show strong character. He stated, "We all know we’re a very long way behind in this game, but if we sit here and say ‘well, we’ve lost this game already’ then we might as well give Pakistan victory right now. If we’re
thinking that in our dressing-room, we might as well just not bother turning up."

He went onto say, "It will take some serious guts to drag ourselves out of this. But there are some bloody good players in that dressing-room, and I hope we can stand up. Anything is possible, but it’s going to take a lot of mental toughness to deliver it."

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Posted by Waqar Masood on Feb 5 2012. Filed under Pakistan, Sports. You can follow any responses to this entry through the RSS 2.0. You can leave a response or trackback to this entry