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Scorecard and ball-by-ball detailsSteve Finn was rampant with the new ball, removing the Pakistan top order•Getty Images

Alastair Cook’s right to the England one-day captaincy is routinely questioned, but he could have hardly done more in Abu Dhabi to end the carping. His highest one-day score reasserted his right to the job and stilled suggestions that Pakistan’s whitewash in the Test series would be followed by another mismatch in the one-day format as England secured a convincing 130-run victory.Cook’s 137 from 142 balls was the only innings of substance in a match comprehensively won by England as Steven Finn took four wickets in a hostile new-ball burst. Cook’s Essex team-mate, Ravi Bopara, managed 50, but needed some good fortune; only two other batsmen reached 20. England’s captain has given this series a new flavour.The figures spoke for themselves. Only his Essex and England mentor, Graham Gooch, has made a higher England one-day score against Pakistan. This was the first England hundred on a troubled tour of the United Arab Emirates. Cook also made the highest ODI score at the Sheikh Zayed stadium. Beneath the roof of a stand that looks like the body of the Starship Enterprise, as captains go, he was beginning to rival the intergalactic kudos only normally given to James T Kirk.Cook aside, the bowlers prospered. Saeed Ajmal, who took 24 wickets in the three-Test series, went unrewarded until his seventh over, but he then rounded up England’s innings with 5 for 15 in his last 23 balls, his menace briefly suppressed but never eradicated. Cook was his penultimate victim, cleverly bowled behind his legs as he planted his leg outside off stump to sweep.For Finn, who carried the drinks during the Test series, it was then not as much ‘lights, action’ as lights, traction, as he put weeks of inactivity behind him to settle the match, making full use of the encouragement brought by evening dew under the floodlights and a fresh breeze in an incisive new-ball burst of 4 for 20 in six overs.Criticism is never far away when it comes to the assessment of Cook’s worth as England’s captain in 50-over cricket. Moments after England had been trounced 3-0 in the Test series, Ian Botham called for him to be replaced by Stuart Broad in the one-day series. England had not played a shot in anger all series, said Botham, and under Cook’s one-day stewardship nothing was about to change.When Cook fell, 23 balls from the end of the innings, the rest of the batsmen had made 78. His one-day striking rate is not far short of a run a ball now and that he can achieve this while looking so orthodox is testimony to his resourcefulness.That his game is developing is undeniable. He tucked the ball confidently into the legside, stretched into some pleasing off-side drives and opened up gaps with subtle footwork and shrewd placement. If his slog sweep against Shahid Afridi to reach 50 was an example of a newish shot in his armoury, his cut to reach a hundred when Saeed Ajmal dropped short was conventional punishment of a poor delivery won by a batsman whose consistency of thought and deed had gradually asserted his authority. If he still looks stilted at times, at least he can now do it in 100 different ways.England’s restive batting otherwise had little else to commend it. Shahid Afridi must have watched England’s distress against spin during the Test series and licked his lips at the fun to come in the ODIs. He was not to be disappointed. He bamboozled Kevin Pietersen and Jonathan Trott in successive balls, a quick legspinner and googly respectively, and he also had Bopara stone dead lbw on two only for the umpire, Ahsan Raza, to turn down the appeal.

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• The 130-run victory margin is England’s third-highest against Pakistan in ODIs. Their highest is the 192-run win in Nottingham in 1992. It is also the highest for England against any team at a neutral venue.

• Alastair Cook’s 137 is his highest score and third century in ODIs. Since his return in 2010 to the ODI team, he has scored 893 runs in 19 matches at an average of 52.52 and strike rate of 93.21.

• Cook’s 137 is also the joint fourth-highest individual score by an England batsman in an ODI outside England. It is also the third-highest score by an England captain after Andrew Strauss 158 and 154.

• The 131-run stand between Cook and Ravi Bopara is the second-highest third-wicket partnership for England in ODIs against Pakistan after the 135-run stand between Mike Gatting and Bill Athey in Karachi in 1987.

• Steve Finn’s 4 for 34 is his best bowling performance so far in ODIs and the fourth-best by an England bowler against Pakistan in ODIs outside England.

• Saeed Ajmal’s 5 for 43 is his first five-wicket haul in ODIs. It is also the fifth-best bowling performance by a Pakistani bowler against England and joint-seventh on the list of best bowling performances by spinners against England.

Pietersen, at the top of the order for the fifth time in an ODI, might have been run out on nought if Imran Farhat had not fumbled at mid-on and also needed a reprieve from DRS when he wandered across his stumps to one that Umar Gul cut back. Pietersen’s incredulity at Raza’s lbw decision summed up his desperate state of mind. Never has a man formally tapped the top of his bat to request a third-umpire ruling with such a BAFTA-winning performance.Cook needed a reprieve himself, on 30, when Simon Taufel’s decision that Hafeez had dismissed him lbw was overturned because of a big inside edge. He reviewed in a quiet, matter-of-fact manner, lacking Pietersen’s penchant for the theatrical.Ajmal then reminded England that he was around. Eoin Morgan perished to a reverse sweep, his preferred one-dayers bringing no immediate sustenance. Craig Kieswetter was spared the ignominy of the Test series and has wintered on the sub continent, attending to his method against the spinners, but he was the latest England batsman to have little inkling against Ajmal and fell to a desperate heave.England’s 260 was only a few runs above par in Abu Dhabi, but Finn swung the match in England’s favour, touching 90mph at times and maintaining a straight, fullish length. Two of his four victims, Mohammad Hafeez and Asad Shafiq, fell lbw and Younis Khan’s inside edge was athletically grasped by the wicketkeeper, Kieswetter, who then held a second catch to dismiss Imran Farhat. The coltish look about Finn in his early England games has all but departed, the improvement shown during England’s 5-0 ODI trouncing in India in October when he was one of the few successes of the tour rousingly confirmed.Worse followed for Pakistan as the captain, Misbah-ul-Haq, who was dismissed lbw five times in the Test series, was against struck in front, this time by the left-arm slows of Samit Patel. Shoaib Malik had been called up to Pakistan’s squad on the insistence of his captain, Misbah, and a confused innings, 7 from 23 balls, did nothing to justify the captain’s choice.Add the fact that Umar Akmal was struggling with a strained back, for which he could not have a runner because of ICC playing conditions – a ruling that the MCC, custodians of the Laws, strongly opposes – and Pakistan were out of contention. Afridi brought cheers from the Pakistan supporters with a few ebullient shots, but most interest in that came from a Nottinghamshire sideshow. After Patel dropped Afridi off Graeme Swann at long-on, Swann then caught Afridi off Patel at long-off. On the coach back to the hotel, Patel would have been well advised to put his headphones on.

Ricky Ponting believes Australia will adapt more rapidly than India to what he expects to be a traditionally fast and bouncy WACA pitch for the third Test. Ponting had been critical in recent years of the way the Perth ground had lost its uniqueness, comparing the surface on which South Africa chased down 414 in December 2008 to a flat Adelaide pitch.However, Cam Sutherland, the curator, has tried to bring back the character of WACA pitches of old during the past couple of seasons. In December 2010, Australia played four fast men in Perth and earned their only win of the Ashes campaign. Sutherland hopes the surface will be at least 20% quicker than the one on which India won a Test in January 2008, and Ponting is hopeful of plenty of bounce.”As Australian players growing up on fast, bouncy pitches – obviously this is the fastest and bounciest wicket in the world – we should be able to adapt to these conditions a bit quicker than the Indians,” Ponting said. “We all enjoy playing here. The last few Tests we’ve played at the WACA it’s starting to get some of its old characteristics back again. The pace and bounce is certainly coming back.”I know a lot of the associations [around Australia] have been under pressure to get drop-in wickets. As soon as you start getting drop-in wickets the characteristics of each ground are gone. The last thing you’d want at the WACA is to come here and play cricket on a slow, dead, docile pitch. It’s not what cricket is supposed to be like here in Western Australia.”Everyone who comes and watches cricket in Perth wants to see batsmen ducking and weaving out of the way of short balls, batsmen getting great benefit for their shots down the ground, lots of square-of-the-wicket shots being played. If we get a fast, bouncy one this week, then I’m sure with the batting talent on display you’ll see a lot of great highlights throughout the week.”Four days out from the third Test against India, which starts on Friday, the pitch was nearly as green as the outfield, and a couple of days later it was still sporting more grass than the average Test surface. However, Ponting said he was reluctant to take too much notice of how the pitch looked until at least the eve of the match.”There’s a bit of grass on the wicket at the moment,” he said. “It is pretty green. But we’re a day and a half out from the start of a Test match and with the sun out like it is, I think the wicket will change a little bit between now and Friday morning. I haven’t read too much into the wicket yet.”Australia’s selectors will need to decide whether to take a four-man pace attack in to the Perth Test for the second summer in a row, with the left-armer Mitchell Starc having joined the squad following the win in Sydney. The offspinner Nathan Lyon could be rested if the pitch looks like a fast-bowling paradise on the morning of the match.Lyon has taken only two wickets in the series and the WACA is unlikely to offer him any more assistance than the conditions in Melbourne and Sydney. Ryan Harris is likely to come in as a straight swap for the injured James Pattinson, leaving Starc and Lyon to fight for the final place in the attack. Michael Hussey said Starc had shown plenty of promise in his first two Tests against New Zealand.”He’s an outstanding prospect, a great athlete,” Hussey said. “He’s got height, he’s got the advantage of being a left-armer and the advantage of being able to swing the ball. It’s good to see he’s bowling with some confidence and he’s a great prospect for the future.”

Cricket South Africa hopes to secure a sponsor for the one-day series against Sri Lanka by next week, after confirming that sunflower cooking oil manufacturer Sunfoil will continue to back the Test series. Cricket has, so far, endured a troubled summer, in which the ongoing bonus scandal, rather than on-field activities, have dominated the sport’s headlines.The issue, centred on money paid out in bonuses to 40 staff after the hosting of the 2009 IPL and Champions Trophy, is currently the subject of a ministerial commission of inquiry. The saga has dragged on since July last year and spilled from the boardroom to the pitch when corporates began turning their backs on cricket.The T20 and ODI series against Australia took place without a sponsor, with the title rights for the two Twenty20 matches being given away to the Make a Difference charity, at no cost. At the last moment, Sunfoil stepped in to sponsor the Test series, saving CSA from a situation in which the only sponsor they had was Castle Lager, who have continued to back the Test team, while also extending their funding to cover the ODI team.An insider told ESPNcricinfo that Sunfoil was given “a very attractive deal” and that the nature of the company, which is “a family-owned business with close ties to cricket,” is likely the chief reason for them agreeing to sponsor cricket when no-one else would. Sunfoil also sponsor the Dolphins franchise and both the Dolphins and Lions development programmes. They have extended their deal to include the three-Test series against Sri Lanka, but the five ODIs which follow are still financial orphans.”Negotiations are ongoing,” CSA acting president AK Khan said in Johannesburg. “Some companies have requested time until next week but we hope to have some confirmation by December 15.”CSA had previously claimed that they had contracted sponsors prior to the season starting and were waiting for the bonus saga to end before announcing them. Now, it seems some of those firms may have backed out completely and the search had to begin again. “There are new companies that have approached us,” Khan said.One of those who backpedalled might have been the prospective domestic one-day cup sponsors. The entire competition was completed without a sponsor, the first the time the tournament has been without a backer. CSA will want to avoid a similar situation with their twenty-over tournament.The competition is scheduled for February and has already seen some big names sign up. Chris Gayle and Shaun Tait have both been contracted to the Dolphins franchise while Shahid Afridi and Abdul Razzaq will turn out for the Lions. Each franchise has been allowed to contract two foreign players. An additional, seventh franchise has been added to the tournament. This team will be comprised of the best semi-professional players in the country and will be allowed to contract four foreign players.The international element of the competition makes it CSA’s hottest property and companies are expected to be lining up to sponsor it. However, there may be a delay. While the ministerial committee has heard all the testimony, Judge Chris Nicholson is only expected to make his recommendations towards the end of February, which could leave the domestic T20 without a sponsor as well.

Basil D’Oliveira, the South Africa-born former England allrounder, died early on Saturday, aged 80, after a long battle with Parkinson’s disease.In 1968, D’Oliveira, a Cape Coloured, was at the heart of one of cricket’s greatest controversies, when the England tour of South Africa had to be called off since the government there refused to accept his presence in the visiting squad. The incident marked the beginning of South Africa’s isolation from international cricket.”Dolly”, as he was affectionately called, couldn’t establish a cricket career in South Africa due to the lack of opportunities for non-white players during the apartheid era. In 1960, the broadcaster and writer John Arlott persuaded him to move to England, where D’Oliveira initially played in the Lancashire leagues. .He went on to play 44 Tests for England and made a name for himself as an allrounder, scoring 2484 runs at an average of 40, and picking up 47 wickets with his medium-pace bowling. His most famous Test innings was in the final Test of the 1968 Ashes, a 158 at The Oval that helped set up a thrilling series-levelling victory.That innings came on the back of a summer of intense speculation over whether D’Oliveira would be picked for the South Africa series that followed the Ashes. South African politicians had made it abundantly clear that he would not be welcome due to his racial origins; despite the century at The Oval, D’Oliveira was left out of the England squad. He was later named as a replacement for the injured Tom Cartwright, a move that eventually caused the series to be cancelled. It was the cancellation of the series over D’Oliviera’s selection which exposed the iniquities of South Africa’s apartheid regime to the cricketing world.Gerald Majola, the CEO of Cricket South Africa, led the tributes to D’Oliveira. “He was a man of true dignity and a wonderful role model as somebody who overcame the most extreme prejudices and circumstances to take his rightful place on the world stage,” Majola said. “One can only imagine what he might have achieved had he made his debut as he should have done at the age of 20 on South Africa’s tour of England in 1951.”Former Worcestershire and England team-mate Tom Graveney paid tribute to his close friend on Sky Sports. “He was a very good allrounder,” he said. “He bowled medium pace, with a few off-spinners in amongst them. But his batting was the thing. He was tremendously strong. I can remember batting with him when the pitches were turning a bit because we played on wet wickets in those days and he was just terrific.”D’Oliveira had a lengthy career with Worcestershire, playing for them between 1964 and 1980, before taking over as the county’s coach for a decade. In all first-class matches he scored 19,490 runs at 40.26 and took 551 wickets at 27.45. His son, Damian, also turned out for Worcestershire, representing them between 1982 and 1995.

The England fast bowler Tim Bresnan has been fined 7.5% of his match fee by the ICC for showing dissent towards an umpire during Thursday’s third ODI against India in Mohali.Bresnan was deemed to have committed a Level 1 breach of the ICC Code of Conduct at the end of the 18th over of India’s innings, when he snatched his cap from umpire Sudhir Asnani after finishing his fifth over.Bresnan pleaded not guilty to the charge, which led to a hearing at the end of the match attended by the player, the umpires, England coach Andy Flower and England team manager Phil Neale.”The umpires deserve the utmost respect not only because they do a difficult job in the middle but also because millions of budding and aspiring cricketers watch every move of the players,” said Roshan Mahanama, the ICC match referee.”This makes all the international cricketers more responsible and accountable for their actions, particularly in their dealings with the umpires in various match situations.”Bresnan’s action came during an ill-tempered performance from England, who failed to defend a total of 298 for 4 and so lost the match by five wickets and the series 3-0 with two games to play.”A bit of chit-chat is fine, that makes the game interesting,” noted India’s captain, MS Dhoni. “You don’t always want a friendly series, as long as things don’t get too personal but I think they should change the plan for the next two games.”

Salman Butt and Mohammad Asif have arrived at Southwark Crown Court in London to begin their trial more than a year after the spot-fixing allegations that engulfed the cricket world during Pakistan’s troubled tour of England.Reporting restrictions are in place for the procedure, which began on Tuesday morning with pre-trial arguments and the process of selecting the jury.The former Pakistan Test captain Butt, 27 on Friday, and fast bowler Asif, 28, have both pleaded not guilty to charges of conspiracy to cheat, and conspiracy to obtain and accept corrupt payments, following the Lord’s Test in August last year when they allegedly conspired to bowl pre-determined no-balls.Butt and Asif, along with teenage fast bowler Mohammad Amir, were exposed by the now defunct British tabloid the News of the World in an undercover sting operation. Their former agent Mazher Majeed was recorded by a secret camera, saying when no-balls would be delivered by the bowlers.The fact the case is being heard at a crown court shows the seriousness of the allegations facing the defendants, with crown court being the more senior of the criminal courts.One of the complexities of this trial surrounds its high-profile nature. Because the issue was so well reported globally at the time, after it was revealed in the , it is likely to be difficult to find a jury that has not in some way heard of the case or information about it and therefore inherited some amount of bias.A re-trial could therefore occur, though how any future jury would also have no previous knowledge of the story is also difficult to quantify.The players have already been punished by the ICC after a disciplinary hearing in Doha, Qatar. There, the three players were each banned from the sport for at least five years. Butt received a further suspended five-year ban and Asif was handed a further two-year suspended sanction.All three players have filed appeals against their bans at the Court of Arbitration for Sport (CAS) in Lausanne, Switzerland.The Pakistan team has admirably set about recovering from a controversy that shocked the sport, after the key players were suspended. Asif, the right-arm swing bowler, and left-armer Amir quickly became one of the most potent new-ball attacks in world cricket. Butt, meanwhile, was a respected opening batsman and was seen as an articulate, diplomatic captain by the British media on that tour last year, prior to the allegations.The most important aspect at stake during the trial is for cricket as a whole and its integrity, honesty and transparency, according to sports lawyer Max Eppel of McFadden’s LLP, who has worked on cases involving cricket and football among others.”The most important thing for any fan of sports is to know the teams are going out there on a level playing field,” he said. “If there is any hint of corruption, the sport could be destroyed. Ultimately, any kind of hype about a criminal court trial is bad publicity for a sport, but if there are good things to come out of it, it is that the sport will get a chance to see any ramifications there are for ever getting involved in this sort of stuff.”

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Varun Chopra was finishing the season as he started it•Getty Images

Varun Chopra and Shivnarine Chanderpaul shared a third-wicket stand of 188 as Warwickshire assumed control of the County Championship Division One title race by reaching 296 for 3 against an abject Hampshire at the Rose Bowl.Both recorded centuries as Chopra passed three figures for the first time since opening the season with two double hundreds in April while Chanderpaul ended the day unbeaten on 107. Hampshire, meanwhile, looked like a team bereft of ideas and ended the day almost certain to join Yorkshire in Division Two, after a horrible day in the field saw Jimmy Adams’ men drop five chances.The writing was on the wall early for the hosts when a diving Michael Carberry put down Chopra on two at third slip off the bowling of James Tomlinson. The left-armer, though, was rewarded for a probing opening spell shortly afterwards when Ian Westwood fenced at a short, wide delivery and was pouched in the gully by James Vince for just 6 in the sixth over.New batsmen Will Porterfield was fortunate to survive even to lunch as the left-hander was twice put down, on nought and one respectively. Neither was simple, though, with Vince grassing a ball on the dive in the gully while there was a difficult low return catch offered to Chris Wood.Hampshire continued to contribute to their own downfall as Porterfield was dropped for a third time by Liam Dawson at second slip off the bowling of Tomlinson – shortly after lunch. The hosts, though, were not made to pay for their error as the Irish skipper was trapped in front of middle and leg by Dimi Mascarenhas the very next over for 28.For the rest of the afternoon it was complete domination by the visiting batsmen as Chopra and Chanderpaul, on a flat wicket, carefully milked the home side to maintain a steady scoring rate.Hampshire’s abysmal day was summed up when Chanderpaul was given a life on 36 as Carberry again spilled a straightforward opportunity off the bowling of Sean Ervine. It was a drop that was to prove costly as the West Indian twice dispatched Danny Briggs for six either side of tea.Chopra, on the other hand, was far more watchful and finally brought his century off 234 balls in a little over four and half hours. Chanderpaul remained intent on attacking and quickly caught Chopra, passing three figures in just 157 balls with 14 boundaries.With the day reaching its final embers there was a mini glimmer of hope as Mascarenhas finally ended Chopra’s long innings at the crease, bowling the opener for 109. But the day belonged to Warwickshire, who are now in pole position to capture their first championship title since 2004

Rahul Dravid has said he was too confused in the heat of the moment to contest the decision that ruled him caught behind off James Anderson in the second innings at Edgbaston. Replays showed he hit his shoelace and not the ball and Dravid said later that he wished he had asked for a review.Dravid appeared to have nicked a delivery from Anderson in the 16th over and was given out, but he was not convinced by the decision. After a word with the non-striker Sachin Tendulkar, however, Dravid decided against using a review.”My first instinct was that I had not hit it,” Dravid told the . “But there was a loud noise, and I couldn’t figure out where it had come from. I knew I hadn’t hit the ground, or my pad, or my shoe, so it confused me as to where the noise had come from. But I didn’t think I had touched it. So I asked my partner and he said there was a big noise. So I had Simon Taufel, one of the best umpires in the world, ruling me out, my partner saying it was out and I myself had heard the noise. I thought maybe it was just one of those instances where I hadn’t felt the edge.”As soon as I got back to the dressing room I told the guys I had to see the replay. I wanted to know where I had touched it [the ball]. I could never have imagined it was a shoelace. It was disappointing because I’ve been batting well and if I had batted longer with Sachin, who played well in that innings, and if we had seen off Anderson’s spell before lunch, we could have at least put up a bigger fight.”It was an odd sequence of play, with the dismissal preceded by Dravid running off the field in between overs. “I rushed off the field because my bladder was full and I wanted to relieve myself. It is an uncomfortable feeling to bat with a full bladder, so I did not want it on my mind.”Dravid has been India’s most successful batsman on a dismal tour of England. After he fell at Edgbaston, the rest of the line-up offered little resistance and India slumped to their third-biggest defeat in Tests. The result meant England replaced India as No. 1 in the ICC’s Test rankings.”It’s been a hard series for a combination of reasons. The pitches have been conducive to good swing bowling, and also the quality of the England bowling has been superb,” Dravid said. “Their seamers have bowled beautiful lengths, and have pitched the ball up. We expected England to be good in this series, but we expected ourselves to be better.”While the rest of India’s batsmen, including Tendulkar and VVS Laxman, struggled to deal with the conditions and England’s bowling, Dravid managed two centuries in six innings. He said there had been a change in his mental approach to the game since his early years.”Early in my career, I used to try to block out thoughts while I was batting and that was very tiring. Now I let my mind wander a bit. I recognise that it is wandering and that helps bring me back to reality. I take a couple of deep breaths and that gets me focussed.”While Dravid heaped praise on England, he pointed out they still had to win in India. “You have to do well in conditions in which you haven’t done well. England haven’t won in India for 27 years, so they have to do that. They’ve got the team and the skills to do it but it still needs to be done. Hopefully we can stop them from doing that.” England will play four Tests in India at the end of 2012.Down 0-3 in the series, India go into the fourth Test at The Oval with little to play for. Dravid, though, said they were also thinking about climbing back to the No. 1 spot. “Of course we want to play for pride and to show people what we can do. But also the goal now is to get back to No. 1 and for that every Test matters.”

If Alastair Cook really meant it when he said he wasn’t motivated “to prove anyone wrong” then he has a strange way of going about things. A 3-2 victory and a Man-of-the-Series award concluded a four-day period that couldn’t have gone much better for Cook.A series defeat against Sri Lanka, the World Cup runners-up, wouldn’t have been calamitous for Cook, especially if he’d made the runs he did, but the pressure would have been increased a few notches. Now, though, he has his second one-day trophy as ODI captain, following the win in Bangladesh last year, and can look forward with confidence to the challenges ahead, after a period back under Andrew Strauss’ leadership in the Test team.While showing that he can translate his Test batting form into the one-day game with 298 runs at a strike-rate of 96.75 in the series, Cook also displayed, during the deciding game at Old Trafford, his tactical acumen in the field. With three frontline quicks and two spinners to rotate while defending 268 there wasn’t much room for a wrong call, particularly after Sri Lanka twice recovered through Dinesh Chandimal and Angelo Mathews; but Cook got it all right.That came right down to giving Jade Dernbach, preferred to the struggling Stuart Broad, the 49th over, with 17 needed off 12 balls after Lasith Malinga had launched James Anderson for a six. Dernbach was in just his fifth ODI but pulled out his trademark slower ball which Mathews spooned to short third man, and then gave Malinga a taste of his own medicine with a swinging yorker.”He has bowled really well at the death, and one of the main reasons he’s been brought into that side is because of the skills he has – and you saw it at the end there, a slower ball followed by a yorker,” Cook said. “We need everyone to be able to do that. He’s bowled very well in pressure situations and in Powerplays.”That’s the first time I’ve had a really tight scenario in my eight games as one-day captain, and I thought we handled it well. The way we committed to what ball we wanted to bowl and were very clear in how we want to bowl was very pleasing.”At the start of the 35th over it appeared Cook was about to give Kevin Pietersen an over to give him some leeway later in the innings. But Sri Lanka took the batting Powerplay and Cook opted to return to Tim Bresnan and Dernbach. The visitors made 37 runs and didn’t lose a wicket, but Cook was confident England could hold on with Graeme Swann and Samit Patel having overs left.”Once we got through that Powerplay and they still needed seven-and-a-half an over and we had five overs of spin, I was quite confident. But we needed to get Mathews.”It was also a match which showed how vital it is to use up 50 overs after a collapse because the 15 runs added by Anderson and Dernbach off the final 11 balls of England’s innings proved the difference. “From the position we got ourselves into, 213 for 3, we would have liked 280 or 290,” Cook said. “But we are being critical – because 270 on that wicket was a very good score – and that little partnership at the end got us there.”Even though Cook has insisted there are no personal agendas for him there was more than a hint of satisfaction at what had been achieved, especially in the light of the growing criticism after England’s performance at Lord’s last week.”Everyone was writing us off, and we’ve played well in these past two games in all conditions; on spinning wickets and flat wickets,” he said. “When you pull on an England shirt, people are always going to have their own opinions.”I don’t do it to prove anyone wrong. I do it for the satisfaction that we got in that final half-hour of the game, and you can’t replicate that. That’s why you play the game. I think the most pleasing aspect is the way we fought back from 2-1 down in the series.”

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Somerset’s Friends Life t20 game against Kent at Taunton was abandoned without a ball bowled.Umpires Trevor Jesty and Richard Illingworth made the decision after a 6.45pm pitch inspection.The heavy rain which had fallen during the afternoon had stopped, but the outfield was deemed too wet to play on.