Alastair Cook has been under tremendous pressure due to a prolonged bad patch since the start of the India series but skipper Joe Root defended his former captain saying that conditions have been tough for opening.

Cook has totalled 90 in five knocks against India so far at a lowly average of 18 per innings. "I think we have to be realistic about the surfaces we have been playing on. Throughout the whole summer, they have been very much tailored around seam bowling. With a lot of cloud cover, it seamed around quite a lot and it's obviously swung as well. The hardest point to bat is opening up," Root said.