Cook hopes to make 100th innings with Strauss count

Abu Dhabi It was spin that got rid of the English openers in the first innings and pace in the second but skipper Andrew Strauss and his deputy Alastair Cook will be looking to make amends in their 100th innings together when England bat during the second Test against Pakistan, starting here Wednesday.

One of the most successful opening Test pairs currently playing, Strauss and Cook had just one century partnership during their 4-0 whitewash over India and put on 10 and six runs, respectively, in the first two innings during the rout in Dubai inside three days.

Cook, speaking to the media during yesterday’s training session, was hopeful that the world’s number one Test side will bounce back.

“Of course when you lose and you lose heavily, naturally it does dent confidence. If you look up history, when we have produced a poor performance we’ve managed to bounce back well, hopefully we can do it this time,” said Cook, who has 19 centuries and 26 fifties under his belt.

“You don’t become bad players and a bad team overnight, whatever you read or whatever people say about you. We know we have some serious world class players in the team. It’s about delivering over the next five days,” said Cook.

The two left-handed openers will be walking out for the 100th time and commenting on their partnership, Cook said, “It’s always nice to our stability with Strauss at the top of order. We’ve had some great moments, highlight for me is Australia at Lord’s after not batting so well in Cardiff, we came back and laid a very solid platform from there. And Brisbane as well, probably they are two standout for me.”

Strauss (161) and Cook (95) put on 196 runs at Lords to win the Second Ashes Test in 2009 by 115 runs while in the First Ashes Test in Brisbane in 2010, Strauss scored 110 while Cook slammed 235 and they starred in a 188-run partnership.

“We are pretty similar in character and we do enjoy batting together and hopefully on 100th time we will do something special,” Cook said.

Cook agreed that as openers, the responsibility is on them to give the team a good start. “It’s our responsibility, always has been if you open the batting... to try and lay a good platform for the boys. We had done that, we didn’t do that last week and it cost us. It’s our job at top of the order to lay out the platform, we didn’t do that in Dubai and that’s why we didn’t get a good total,” Cook said.

“We said when we turn No. 1 that there are going to be some rocky roads, rocky times ahead of you. No matter how good a side you are, you always lose games of cricket against some very good sides against which you are playing. This is a real test of our character without a doubt, we’ve shown that in the past and hopefully we can show it again,” said Cook, the youngest batsman to reach 5000 Test runs.