England want to bounce back from a disastrous showing at Lords by playing well enough to get a special Edgbaston crowd on their side in the third Ashes test against Australia, said captain Alastair Cook on 28 July.
Cooks team were humiliated by 405 runs in the second test at the home of cricket as Australia levelled the five-match series 1-1.
Lords was obviously a tough four days, especially on the back of Cardiff where we played so well, said Cook. One-one in an Ashes series coming to Edgbaston, a fantastic ground where if we play some good cricket the crowd really get behind us and we are just, as a group of players, are really looking forward to that challenge against a very good side.
Lords was an absolute disaster but thats gone. Its like a three-game series now and we need to win two of them to create something really special, Cook added.
England have made a series of poor batting starts recently and the skipper is hoping the in-form Jonny Bairstows inclusion and Ian Bells promotion from four to three in the order can spark a turnaround.
Weve found ourselves, over the last six months or so, three wickets down for early on too many occasions, so a little bit of a rejink [was in order]. Tough call on Gary [Ballance] but he will be back, theres no doubt about that, said Cook.
Congratulations to Jonny really, hes kind of knocked the door down. His weight of runs for Yorkshire in the first division top of the league, I think hes still averaging over 100 thats fantastic cricket at any level, let alone the first division with Yorkshire, so hes raring to go. The mood in the camp, we just cant wait until tomorrow.
England have rejigged their line-up, bringing in batsman Bairstow for Ballance, and they may also need to call up paceman Steven Finn in place of Mark Wood, who has an ankle problem.
Well make that call in the morning, Finny has bowled really well for Middlesex, hes bowled really well in the one-dayers, whoever gets the nod is kind of the lucky one, Cook said.
