Tag Eng-WI-June-2012

England’s captain Alastair Cook spoke at a press conference after the second ODI against the West Indies and was quoted saying he was pleased with the way his team performed at the Oval following the tragic death of fellow English cricketer Tom Maynard.

“It's been a tough 36 hours for us as a team,” Cook said.

“It was obviously incredibly sad news and I think quite a few boys were emotional, especially today at the minute's silence. On the cricket front, the way we handled it and came out to set the tone was how we went from there.

“It has been difficult; something like this hits us hard. We have all played with Tom and pretty much all of us have played against him.”

The shocking news of the 23-year-old’s passing away had disturbed almost everyone at the England camp who had known or played with Maynard in the past. Both teams wore black armbands and observed a minute’s silence for the youngster before starting play.

England went on and won the match against the West Indies by an impressive 8 wickets. Cook, who scored a magnificent 112 in the ODI, added that the players had handled themselves extremely well, given the difficult and emotional circumstances. During the match, Chris Gayle’s big hits and his half century certainly tested the English side, along with the 100-run partnership of Dwayne Bravo and Kieron Pollard.

“We came under some pressure with Chris Gayle going well and the powerplay between Pollard and Bravo where we didn't quite get it right. But we responded both times really well to that and we knew 240 was a competitive total. We knew if we could bat well then we should get it. It was a pretty easy chase in the end.

We played very well today; it was a really good team performance. Our bowlers did a great job and 240 was very gettable,” Cook added.

It’s been a very emotional couple of days for England, but the way they have held it together is amazing.

The last ODI in the series against the Windies will be played on Friday, the 22nd, before they go on to play one T20 match on Sunday.