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Alastair Cook
Former captain Alastair Cook has urged England to drop wicketkeeper-batter Jonny Bairstow from the Ranchi Test against India, to "protect the player" who is having an abysmal series. Bairstow, who is playing as a specialist batter, has endured a woeful run in the ongoing five-match series. He is averaging 17.00 having registered scores of 0, 4, 25, 26, 37 and 10 in six innings. "I'm taking him out of the firing line to protect the player, as I think he's had a tough tour so far and India is a tough place to keep going on the treadmill," Cook told 'TNT Sport'. "I'm not saying he'll never play Test cricket again, but it's good to have someone who's fresh of all the debris of this series so far," he added. Cook backed Dan Lawrence to replace Bairstow as the all-rounder will step up out in Ranchi without any baggage. "When you're not scoring runs, there's a build-up of pressure and momentum from certain bowlers on you, so I'd let Dan Lawrence have a go." However, another former capta
England's "lack of match preparation" in India ahead of the gruelling five-Test series could be a "problem" but the team can bank on its 'Bazball' approach to upstage Rohit Sharma and his men, feels Alastair Cook, who led the Englishmen to a memorable Test triumph in the country back in 2012. Having opted for a month-long training camp in 'subcontinent-like conditions' of Abu Dhabi, Ben Stokes and Co. arrived in Hyderabad on Sunday, just four days before the opening Test on Thursday. "A problem England will have is a lack of match preparation," Cook, who had top-scored with 562 runs in the 2-1 come-from-behind win over India in the 2012-13 series, wrote in his column for 'The Sunday Times'. "It is the nature of the modern tour. When we won in India in 2012 we had three warm-up games against good sides -- Yuvraj Singh, Ajinkya Rahane and Murali Vijay were in the top four in the India A side we faced and Cheteshwar Pujara played in one of the other games," he recalled. "...I can ...