Indian are Test No.1 for a reason, says Alastair Cook

BIRMINGHAM: Former England skipper Alastair Cook feels India's pace battery has variety and depth, one thing that they've lacked as a touring side these kind of years.

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"India seem to have got a good variety of bowlers, especially pace bowlers, which is probably unusual. They have strength of depth in their pace bowling," said Cook ahead of the primary Test starting right here on Wednesday.

"Over the last couple of years -- certainly in the last 10 years I've played them, they haven't had the option of playing five or six different types of seamers. That's different to what I have experienced in the past, but we'll see over the next six weeks."

The type of India's top order seems to be a purpose of shock for the guests but Cook on Monday sponsored suffering Shikhar Dhawan and Cheteshwar Pujara to come back just right within the collection.

"With very good players, form is certainly temporary. The reason they're very good players is the number of runs they've scored in the past over a sustained period of time," he said.

"That's why they're the number one side in the world. You can go a couple of innings not scoring any runs, and suddenly you get a couple away and start to get that rhythm and timing back, and you get a big one. That is the nature of the beast, certainly with top-order batting," Cook said.

The 33-year-old himself is returning to the England fold after playing towards Pakistan earlier in the summertime.

Cook said that he is feeling contemporary for the challenge towards India, an aspect towards whom he has had numerous good fortune at Edgbaston.

"I feel fresh. I haven't played a huge amount of cricket over the last three and a half weeks. It was nice to score those runs last week (180 for England Lions versus India A). I moved pretty well, I batted pretty well. I feel ready," said Cook, who had scored 294 right here in 2011.

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Talking about captaincy, Cook, who had resigned as England Test captain ultimate yr to pave approach for Joe Root, said: "I thoroughly loved my time as England captain. It is an overly challenging task. It's a hard task. But it is usually an overly rewarding task. You get tested in ways you by no means concept you can be.

"And you are making selections each day about things which, before the day starts, you do not know about, and you're captaining your country, which is the largest honour a sportsman can know. I absolutely liked it. But I assumed it was once the precise time (to give up) for me in my view."

Cook feels the consistent alternate within the mixture of the playing XI has affected England's dream of changing into the #1 workforce on this planet.

"To become the #1 side on this planet, it takes two or three years of in point of fact just right effects and we've not had that. The workforce has been changing as we're studying different things about other avid gamers and other mixtures," he said.

"You go back to that side in 2011, that was once probably the tip of 2 or three years below Andrew Strauss and Andy Flower playing in point of fact just right cricket with the similar 14 or 15 avid gamers. Everyone produced the goods over a time frame. We're a bit of bit clear of that and that's the reason the challenge of this time," he said.