MANCHESTER (England): England are set to leave it as late as possible before deciding whether captain Alastair Cook is fit to face Sri Lanka in the third One-day International at Old Trafford on Wednesday.

The opening batsman’s groin injury meant he missed England’s humiliating 157-run defeat in the second ODI at Chester-le-Street on Sunday where the hosts were bowled out for a meagre 99 as Sri Lanka levelled the five-match series at 1-1.

That match saw Cook replaced by fellow left-hander Michael Carberry although England had called up Twenty20 specialist Alex Hales as cover for their skipper, with the team led by former Ireland batsman Eoin Morgan.

Cook appeared to take a full part in light training on Tuesday and then batted for an hour in the nets.

England seamer James Anderson, set to appear on his Lancashire home ground on Wednesday, was optimistic about Cook’s prospects.

“We’ll see how he is in the morning,” Anderson told a news conference on Tuesday. “He’s practised today, so fingers crossed he will be okay.”

England won a rain-affected first ODI at The Oval only to suffer a colossal collapse at the weekend.

“It was an extremely poor performance ... and what we’ve done today, and yesterday, is focus on how we’re going to put it right on Wednesday,” said Anderson.

“It was just one of those days where everything that could go wrong did. Certainly with the bat, we under-performed.”

Meanwhile, batsman Joe Root said England’s much-vaunted attempt to rebuild their standing with their fans, let alone the rest of the cricket world, will come to nothing if they suffer yet more humiliation against the Sri Lankans.

Root knows a repeat of the Durham debacle won’t go down well with the paying public.

“We don’t want fans turning up for games and seeing a performance like that,” he said of Sunday’s drubbing. “It’s quite embarrassing. The one way to get people to come and watch you is to win games of criwcket and we have to make sure we can do that consistently, earn the right for people to want to come and watch us.”

But Root insisted England, who will hope to welcome back Cook.

“We played some really good cricket at The Oval, which was not even a week ago now,” said Root. “If we do play at the top of our game we’re going to beat sides like Sri Lanka.”

Root though was at a loss to explain why England had batted so badly at Chester-le-Street.

“There isn’t one [explanation] that slaps you in the face,” he said. “I think there are little things from a personal point of view that we can work on in practice and try and iron out.”

Published in Dawn, May 28th, 2014