England must 'find a way'

Dernbach: Admits England need to get better at every facet of the game

These conditions are very different to us, something we don't experience very often back home. So we're going to have to adapt as best we can, and find a way - that's the thing about this area, to find a way of winning.

Jade Dernbach
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England are determined to 'find a way' of turning around their five-match one-day international series against India, insists Jade Dernbach.

Alistair Cook's team go into Monday's second ODI at the Feroz Shah Kotla in Delhi on the back of a crushing defeat in the series opener in Hyderabad.

England were beaten by 126 runs after Mahendra Singh Dhoni put the game out of reach with some brutal powerplay hitting, and their batting line up then collapsed under pressure from India's spinners.

Cook and Co know they must improve quickly if they are to prevent the five-match series slipping out of their grasp. And Dernbach believes there is no better place to start than with the Indian skipper himself.

"Obviously, he's a fantastic player," said Dernbach. "As a bowling unit, we just need to find a way of getting him out, and restricting him - as is the case in any game, in any powerplay.

"That's the exciting bit of the game, and we just need to find a way of containing the runs and finding ways to get wickets.

"He's a great player, as is the Indian side in general. We just need to find a way of being better than him on the day, find a way of restricting him and getting him out.

"In the games where India have done well, he seems to have been the man who has been there to be quite destructive - so we have to find a way of getting him out.

"With his ability to hit boundaries, our margins for error are quite small. As you saw the other night, a couple of yorkers which were missed by a couple of inches found their way to the boundary for six.

"That just proves the margins for error are quite small, and we need to be better at nailing our skills."

Much attention has focussed on England's collapse at the hands of the Indian spinners in the opener.

And India batsman Virat Kholi told England that with conditions on the sub-continent favouring slow bowlers, and given England's problems facing spin on those surfaces, it was a tactic that his side will aim to employ extensively throughout the series.

Struggle

"We're going to look to use spin as our strength," said Kholi. "Not forgetting the fast bowlers - who are very skilled as well

"England obviously did struggle in the first match against spin, so we'll probably try to capitalise on those middle overs where they were not that sure.

"That will be our strength, especially playing on these kind of wickets in India."

However, although Dernbach admits to England's weakness against spin in India, he is well aware that there are a number of areas in which the side must improve.

"There are quite a few areas we spoke about, where we went wrong," Dernbach added.

"I don't think it was just in the spin department - there were a whole lot of things, and we just didn't play well in general. We need to get better at every facet of the game.

"These conditions are very different to us, something we don't experience very often back home. So we're going to have to adapt as best we can, and find a way - that's the thing about this area, to find a way of winning.

"We can't really come up with excuses because of different pitches - we know what they're like; we've had preparation days - we just need to find a way of winning cricket matches. That's what we'll do."