England’s 2-2 home series draw against Shubman Gill’s India was against “not a great Indian side,” according to batting legend Alistair Cook, raising questions about the team’s Ashes preparation.
In the current Ashes series, England lost the first three Test matches against Australia, by 8 wickets at Perth and Brisbane and by 82 runs at Adelaide.
Though England won their first Test on Australian soil in 15 years at the MCG on Saturday, the Aussies have already retained the urn.
Earlier this year, the five-match series against India ended in a 2-2 draw. Gill completed the series with a prolific 754 runs, including four hundreds, in his maiden assignment as Test captain.
Cook claimed that England’s recent performance gave the appearance of progress while hiding more serious problems.
“They started off with a bang, Key, McCullum and Stokes. I think McCullum won his first eight out of 10 games or something the first year. Since then it’s gone downhill,” Cook said on the opening day of the Boxing Day Test at the Melbourne Cricket Ground.
“This year I think their percentage of win is like just above 30 percent so it’s a bit of a downward trend. I like Rob Key, I like McCullum, I like how they think but I do think they’ve, this last little bit, they have taken our eye off the ball for the bigger series.”
Referring to the five-Test series against India, Cook stated, “… they were talking about India, they lost, they drew India and India just got thumped by South Africa. So that Indian side wasn’t a great Indian side either.
“So, actually it’s a reality, it’s just hit this England Test team and now they’re going to decide how they want to play with what players afterwards.”
