Bangladesh v England: Alastair Cook always confident of victory in first Test
Monday 24 October 2016 11:23, UK
Alastair Cook insisted he always had the belief that England would secure victory over Bangladesh despite a tension-filled climax on the final morning of the first Test.
The captain's faith proved to be well-placed as Ben Stokes took the two wickets England required, securing a 22-run win in Chittagong.
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England head to Dhaka for the second and final Test of the series with a 1-0 lead, but Cook admitted that he expected a more comfortable win after setting Bangladesh 286 to win.
"I was fairly confident this morning, if I'm brutally honest," he said. "I thought we'd create the chances, the doubt was whether we were good enough to take those chances.
"They might [have been] half chances, but I thought we'd create enough to win the game so I was fairly relaxed.
"I did genuinely think 280 was going to be enough. I didn't think it would get as close as that and the way they played spin in particular was very impressive.
"It was a brilliant Test. I certainly didn't think after the first session that it would go to day five. It ebbed and flowed."
Both sides appeared to seize control of the match at various points, only for their opponents to fight back and wrestle it from them, leading to the tense finale on the fifth morning.
Amid all the back-and-forth across the four and a bit days, Cook pinpointed a spell at the beginning of day three that he saw as decisive in the match.
"The crucial moment was probably the beginning of day three when they were 70 or 80 behind with five wickets in hand and we managed to get a lead. That was the crucial difference," he said.
If that was the key session, Stokes was the key man for England. The all-rounder took 4-26 in Bangladesh's first innings, made 85 with the bat in England's second and then returned to take the last two match-winning wickets on day five.
"I say it every single time we speak about him, the guy is that x-factor cricketer which every side would love to have. He balances our side, he gives us options," Cook said of the 25-year-old.
"The one thing he has done over the last year is improve his method against spin. I don't want to say I'm surprised but it surprised me how well he scored that hundred [in the ODI series]. It just showed what a lot of hard work can do and he can take a lot of credit for that."
With a gruelling schedule of six Test matches in the next eight weeks, Cook also confirmed that England are likely to rotate their side and are could make changes to the XI for the Dhaka Test.
"I'm pretty sure there will be some changes, just due to what we have coming up," he explained.
"If we play the same side a lot in the tour, we could have a lot of guys with not much cricket under their belts coming into a crucial Test match a bit further down the line.
"We were pretty clear when we came out that we would rotate, so I'd imagine there might be a couple of changes."
