Alastair Cook needs to be more aggressive, says Shane Warne

Alastair Cook and Peter Moores in a net session ahead of the first test against Sri Lanka at Lords

Former Australian leg-spinner Shane Warne has called for more aggression from Alastair Cook, when his side takes the field at Lord’s on Thursday against Sri Lanka for the first of the two Test match series.

“Cook should have been smashing his fist on the table and saying this is the way we are going to play,” Warne wrote in his column in The Telegraph.

“I hope he demanded from the selectors they picked players with the traits to produce the brand of cricket he wants to play under his leadership. If Cook wants to stay boring and be the same old England by bowling wide of off stump and trying to build up pressure slowly then he has chosen the wrong path,” stated the greatest leg-spinner of all time.

“I find it really surprising they have gone back to Matt Prior. When you are restructuring the team why pick Prior and not Jos Buttler? He has just shown how dangerous he is with the bat with a brilliant one-day hundred so stick with him while he is on a roll. Going back to Prior I really believe is a backward step. I think that it is a Moores call, the old Sussex connection with Prior. I think it is a teacher’s pet selection and Buttler has been hard done by,” claimed Warne.

It has to be noted that Peter Moores was once the coach at Sussex, Prior’s county team. Prior was left out of the team for the last two matches in Australia, after which he suffered an Achilles injury. Even though Prior scored a century against Middlesex at Hove in April, he did not keep wickets. Buttler scored 121 from just 74 balls in a losing cause in the 4th ODI against Sri Lanka last month.

“Prior has been a fantastic cricketer for England. But because of his Achilles injury he comes into the Test with hardly any form behind him. He needs to go back to county cricket, score hundreds, keep well, and prove to everyone he is still hungry,” Warne added.

The Australian great also voiced his opinion on the ‘mankading’ issue that came up in the ODI series.

“If it had been a one-off, with no warning, then you would ask serious questions about Sri Lanka. For the actual dismissal, Buttler was barely out of his ground. But when you put it into context, rather than jump up and down and scream about the Spirit of Cricket, then I would have done it a lot earlier. I would have run him out after four or five twos and not waited until the next match,” stated Warne.