"This Indian side can definitely be beaten again" - Sir Alastair Cook after Team India beat England in 2nd Test
Sir Alastair Cook believes while India would be "relieved" to have won the Visakhapatnam Test on Monday, England would feel the hosts are vulnerable to another defeat.
Despite seeing a double century from Yashasvi Jaiswal, a Shubman Gill century, and two extraordinary spells of fast bowling from Jasprit Bumrah, India never looked quite comfortable in the second Test. Most other Indian batters failed to convert their starts while Ravichandran Ashwin, Axar Patel, and Mukesh Kumar were patchy with the ball.
England fell short of the 399-run final target but managed to score 292, which is among the highest in the fourth innings by a visiting team in Tests in India.
"India will be relieved more than anything. They were under the cosh after the first Test," Cook said on TNT Sports.
England lost the game because not one of their batsmen had a match-winning innings. That is what they'll look back at. Scores of 30-70 don't win Test matches... England have got close here without any hundreds. They'll be disappointed. There will definitely be things that England will take from this game, though. This Indian side can definitely be beaten again," he added.
Another thing to note is that the toss played a crucial role in both Tests. Ben Stokes called it right in the first game and managed to put India under pressure in the fourth innings and the hosts did the same in Visakhapatnam.
"Joe Root struggles with the tempo of this Bazball era" - Sir Alastair Cook
The former English captain also spoke about his heir Joe Root's struggles with the bat in the series and why the team's highest run-scorer has only been able to manage 52 runs from four innings, which is even less than Rehan Ahmed.
"He sees all these other people playing these aggressive shots, which suit their style. Rooty has got 11,500 Test runs, he’s brilliant, but he’s so desperate to fit in to what Ben [Stokes] and Brendon [McCullum] are doing that sometimes I don’t think he gets his balance of attack and defense right," Cook said.
"He’s England’s best batsman there’s ever been in all formats – but he does struggle sometimes with the tempo of this Bazball era," he added.
The third Test of the series will commence in Rajkot on February 15.