England vs India: Alastair Cook praises Haseeb Hameed and Ben Stokes

India captain Virat Kohli has demanded better catching from his fielders after they let England off the hook on the opening morning of the drawn series opener in Rajkot. Ashwin conceded just 31 runs in 13.3 overs that he bowled. England will look to continue their good work and not try too many things but stick to the basics and execute plans to perfection.

‘In Test cricket, if you don’t take your chances, then the game is very hard to pull back. It did take time for me to get my rhythm, especially since I was playing a Test after a long time. We could have been much better on days one and two.

“He hasn’t got miles in his legs though and you are weighing that up against seamers who have been with us all winter and Woakes as well”.

“We wanted to set them a score that they couldn’t get so the only two chances of a result were us to win or them to draw and that can do amusing things on a fifth-day wicket”.

Discussing a potential recall for Anderson, Cook added: “It’s the question we have to ask ourselves”.

The game in Rajkot saw close to 1500 runs scored on the five days with four of the England batsmen notching centuries along with Cheteshwar Pujara and Murali Vijay from India.

“I’ve sacrificed a bit to come out here”, said Cook. “But in modern-day cricket now I think they would have had every chance of chasing 250 on that wicket”.

He told Sky Sports: “We then batted under pressure second innings and I thought the way Haseem played was brilliant and made today possible. So I think that was something that was a challenge for me which I was able to overcome in the second innings and that gave me more pleasure as a batsman than scoring a big hundred or getting a big score”. We have done really well in all the three departments over the past three and a half months that I have been a part of this team or even before that.

“No one was talking of us having a chance in this series, but the way we played showed we’re in there”. “That’s something that we are obviously aware of, going into this Test match”. “We are doing some good stuff at the moment”, Root said. “When there is the pressure to win the match, you can play your shots, but when you are trying to save the match, you have to keep the intent going but can’t play as many shots”, said Kohli.

He’s got a terrific wrong’un and some of the Indian top order batsmen are not picking it – I don’t care what anyone says, they did not pick it.