"We are striving to become the best side we can be. I think naive is the word. You can play bad shots but we played too many bad shots. I don't think we got our angles right," the England skipper said.
The second Test starts in a few day's time and Cook promised a more resolute performance from his English side. "It is frustrating but now we've got three days to go and work on it. You don't take any offence, but certainly at that emotive time it's not pleasant viewing. When you've lost a game of cricket for the first 20 minutes or so it's not pleasant. It's not nice losing at Lord's and seeing the opposition like they were at the end (referring to Pakistan's press-up celebrations). We will use that (Pakistan's celebration) as motivation and get better," he pointed out.
England missed the charismatic presence of lead pacer, James Anderson, as well as the all-round abilities of Ben Stokes, and the England captain slyly insisted that inexperience was one of the major reasons behind England's loss. "Some of us have got a bit more experience. In general, this is quite an inexperienced side we played and some of that showed," he said.
Cook also rejected suggestions that complacency played a part in England's defeat and took solace from the fact that England have previously emerged stronger from demorolising losses at Lord's. "It's not all doom and gloom and we have to try and improve as a side. If it was easier and easy cricket, you guys (journalists) would be doing it. Some of the guys here have been doing it," he said with a hint of smile but ensuring it wasn't derogatory in any manner. "Of course it's hard. We've got a challenge ahead of ourselves now and we have to work really hard as a team. We have to stick together which we will do. We lost heavily to Australia here and bounced back really quickly."
The second Test begins at Old Trafford in Manchester on Friday (July 22).
No comments:
Post a Comment