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Top Stories Cook will be a top 20 hit  Alastair Cook has already taken the long and grinding road to six Test hundreds for England - and now he wants to prove Twenty20 is as easy as falling off a slog. Pin-up Cook is desperate to tee off against the West Indies at the Brit Oval tomorrow and show new England coach Peter Moores he can give some welly like the mud-surfers at Glastonbury. Until now, the Essex opener has been pigeon-holed as an accumulator rather than a dasher - although he has stockpiled 1,435 runs at 46.29 in 18 appearances to show for it. But Cook, still only 22, insists he is equipped to be a banger as well as a blocker. And with Ian Bell very doubtful for the Twenty20 double header in Kennington after being sent for a scan on a torn groin muscle, his wish to join England's happy slappers may be granted. He said: "If my one-day record is a bit of a mystery, that's probably because most people have only seen me play in Test matches, where you can afford to bat all day. "But I can hit a cricket ball a long way - perhaps not as far as a golf ball - and no coach has ever told me I need to change my style to succeed in oneday cricket. Twenty20 is an exciting brand, but it's not all about hitting sixes. Some of the best one-day batsmen in the world are those who can improvise, hit the gaps and make use of the angles. "In the shorter game, you need a method to maximise your scoring opportunities and make the most of fielding restrictions, and your risk management has to be sharp. "But that comes with experience, and you can only gain experience if you are in the side. I believe that if you're good enough to play Test cricket, you're good enough to handle the one-day game." Cook's only two limitedovers international appearances to date came against Sri Lanka last summer, where he averaged 40 and his strike rate of 80 runs per 100 balls was respectable enough to suggest he was ditched with indecent haste. England were so useless at one-day cricket under Duncan Fletcher that they would have struggled to beat the Teletubbies and the Tweenies, but Cook should benefit from Moores' clean slate. Speaking as an ambassador for Ask.com, England's official search engine, he said: "There has been an air of change this summer, not only in terms of new players but a new team behind the scenes and the way we go about our practice. "On Monday we spent an hour training in the rain at Dulwich College, sliding and diving around, getting wet and having fun. We probably looked more like a rugby squad practising our scrums and line-outs, but nobody complained that we shouldn't be doing it." England team sponsor Vodafone will donate £50 to charity for every run they score tomorrow. source - mirror.co.uk |
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