England captain Alastair Cook was a relieved man after the hosts managed to beat India by 41 runs in the final ODI at Headingley. Cook, who was under fire for England's pathetic show in the ODI series, praised Joe Root for scoring a fine hundred, that set up the consolation win.
"That's a far better performance, and that's what we can play like. It's frustrating not to play like that before. Joe showed what he can do and that's what we've been missing in our batting. We've got a lot of 20s and 30s, the first time a guy goes on and gets a hundred we have a better chance," Cook said.
Root hit a superb 113 off 108 balls and was supported well by Jos Buttler and Ben Stokes who came up with important cameos to power England to a total of 294/7. Cook was happy that England could post a sizeable total, although he said he would have liked a few big partnerships.
"You saw how hard it was to chase down 300. We just played better, we didn't want to lose 4-0. In the first game, we were 50 for 0 off nine overs, but we needed to build more big partnerships. They were two down by the first ten and we were ahead of the game. This is the first time we've got a massive chunk of ODI cricket and we can focus on that," Cook said.
While nothing went right for them in the ODI series, apart from the win in the final ODI, the England skipper hoped that their run up to the next year's World Cup would be perfect.
"We've got a bit of a break, then Sri Lanka, batting against spin, then the tri-series in Australia. So preparation will be perfect and hopefully we can improve and show it at the World Cup. We have not played well enough, we have not had our full strength team either. The last time we did, we went to the Champions Trophy final," said Cook, who added that he was the right man to lead England in ODIs.
Root was named the Man of the Match for his fine knock and the youngster said it was initially tough to bat but the conditions got better as he spent time at the middle. The was the 23-year-old's second ton in the ODI format, and also his highest, going past the 107 he scored against West Indies in March this year.
"It was a tough start with, then the conditions got a bit easier, and it was good to take it on. I tried to think not too much and play on instinct. We knew it would spin, spoke to the guys who'd played county ODI cricket here, nice to see what we worked on go well, that's a positive," Root said.
Root added 108 runs with Buttler and the runs came in quick time. When asked about his partnership, he said, "I enjoy playing with Jos and the way he played kick-started the back end of our innings. He takes pressure off me a lot."
