Cook hit in the pocket

England batsman's captaincy debut ends in heavy defeat and fine

Last updated: 16th November 2009   Subscribe to RSS Feed

Cook hit in the pocket

Cook: fined for slow over rate

I thought England were very predictable.

Mickey Arthur
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Alastair Cook has been fined 20 percent of his match fee for England's slow over rate during the 84-run defeat to South Africa in the second Twenty20 international on Sunday.

Cook, making his debut as England captain in place of the injured Paul Collingwood, had a day to forget as the Proteas piled up 241-6 - the second highest T20 total ever.

The International Cricket Council confirmed on Monday that England have been fined for a slow over rate, with the players losing 10 percent of their match fees and Cook, as skipper, fined double that amount.

An ICC statement read: "Alastair Cook's side was ruled to be one over short of its target at the end of the match when time allowances were taken into consideration."

Should Cook, as captain, be found guilty of two further similar offences in T20 internationals over the next 12 months, he will receive a one-match suspension.

Batting order

England's run chase eventually finished on 157-8 at Centurion but Cook has defended the decision not to send in big hitters, such as Kevin Pietersen and Eoin Morgan, at the start of the innings.

Instead, the tourists opted to retain the more orthodox opening combination of Cook and Joe Denly, who had also been on duty in Friday's one-run victory in the series opener.

"There were thoughts of it (changing the batting order), but we decided not to go with that," said Cook.

"We got 200 the other day playing with that order, so we decided to stick with it.

"Unfortunately the big hits, we didn't hit them as cleanly as they did.

"In hindsight, we could have maybe changed it, but whether it would have changed the result I don't know, because 240 is a lot of runs."

Arthur criticism

South Africa coach Mickey Arthur admitted he was surprised England did not change their batting order.

"I must say I was very surprised they didn't do that (change the order)," said Arthur.

"I thought they would certainly have used Eoin Morgan and Jonathan Trott at the top of the order with KP batting three.

"We talk about us perhaps being a little but unpredictable, I thought England were very predictable."