Alastair Cook says Indian bowling attack has both depth and variety

Former England skipper Alastair Cook has said that the Indian bowling attack seems to have all the bases covered.

"India seem to have got a good variety of bowlers, especially pace bowlers, which is probably unusual. They have strength in depth in their pace bowling," Cook said ahead of the first Test match. 

Backs the top order of India to come good

Cook also conceded that over the last couple of years, the Indian team has seldom had the chance to play five or six different types of seamers, but the situation seems to be different this time. 

There are worries around the Indian top order, but Cook has backed the batsmen to come good in the upcoming Test series.

"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.

England's all-time leading scorer has said that there is a reason why the Indian side is the number one side and the players who are currently out of form will come back if they play a couple of substantial innings. 

The former skipper also spoke about his own challenges and said that he does feel "fresh" about the upcoming series. 

"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.

Back in 2011, the southpaw had scored 294 runs against India. 

England have not had the best results in Test cricket and believes that constant changes to the side has certainly impeded the progress of the side.

"To become the number one side in the world, it takes two or three years of really good results and we haven't had that. The team has been changing as we're finding out different things about different players and different combinations," he said.