On par with winning in Australia: Alastair Cook

England skipper Alastair Cook on Monday lauded the team effort for their series win in India. Cook & Co became the first English side to beat India here since David Gower’s team achieved that feat way back in 1984-85.

On the victory: It’s been an incredible tour and to keep India out today and how convincingly we batted out the day today… obviously we were nervous knowing how close we were to doing something really special. To eventually go out and do it as convincingly as we did was incredible.  It’s at par with winning in Australia. As an Englishman, winning in Australia meant a huge amount, but here the dressing room, especially in the last half hour so, knowing what we had achieved, was a very special place to be in. It will stay in my memory. I’m going to enjoy it tonight.

On whether they had doubts in their minds about winning: There’s always doubt. Especially halfway through day two in Mumbai when we were getting rolled a bit, but as I said before, if we could play close to our potential as a side we had a chance of winning the game. And we did that in Mumbai. And we followed it up in another game in Kolkata. We continued with that form in this Test. It was about translating what we had been practicing and planning out in the middle and trusting our abilities with the bat and the lads really stood up in these three games.

On the England bowling: The bowling attack we have has proven itself over a number of years. Monty (Panesar) coming in was fantastic. Jimmy (Anderson) was outstanding with the reverse swinging ball. Swanny was great, the highest wicket-taker in the series. Those three guys were fantastic.

On his captaincy: Yeah, it was a tough start losing at Ahmedabad. It was a bit like going in at the deep end. It was as tough as it could be at the start. But yes, India at home – it doesn’t get any tougher. It was great the way we approached the tour and then how the lads have embraced Indian conditions and showed the willingness to learn. A lot of credit also goes to Andy Flower and the backroom staff for helping us out.