Ashes 2021-21: The Current England Team Didn't Have The Kind Of Preparation The 2010-11 Team Had, Says Sir Alastair Cook
Published - 13 Dec 2021, 03:08 PM
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Former England skipper Sir Alastair Cook has said that the current England side didn’t get the kind of preparation his team had in the 2010-11 Ashes which England won. 2010 had won the five-match series by 3-1 under the captaincy of Andrew Strauss with the first game ending in a draw at the Gabba in Brisbane.
The 2010 side had played three warm-up games ahead of the five-match series to get acclimatized to the tough Aussie conditions. They were the first team after 1986 to win the Ashes down under.
The 1986-team was led by Mike Gatting which won the series by 2-1 with the second and third game ending in a draw. Interestingly, this was the last time an England team won a Test match at the Gabba. Since then, none of the England team has managed to win the game at the historic venue. In the ongoing series, the Joe Root-led were hammered by the Aussies by nine wickets inside four days of the first game.
Root won the toss and elected to bat first. His team was restricted on 147 runs by the Pat Cummins-led side. In reply, Australia amassed 425 runs leading by a whopping 278 runs. England fought back with 220/2 at the end of day three with crumbled on the next day as they were all-out on 297. Needing only 20 runs to win, Australia won the game with nine wickets in hand.
Sir Alastair Cook points out the lack of preparation for the England team
“This is critical stuff, especially when I think back to 2010-11. Yes, I had one of the most productive series of my life but in the first tour match, I had scores of 5 and 9. I needed those first few innings to get the nerves and anxiety out of the way and my eye back in. When no one in the England team has had that kind of preparation, you end up getting bowled out for 147,” Alastair Cook wrote in his column for The Times.
The Joe Root-led side only had one warm-up game ahead of the first Test but was washed out due to rain. Meanwhile, Alastair Cook was the highest run-getter in the 2010-11 series with 766 runs and was awarded as the Man Of The Series.
