Played some good cricket at stages: Cook

Despite going down to India by 246 runs in the second Test at the ACA-VDCA Cricket Stadium here, England skipper Alastair Cook on Monday hailed his side, saying they played well in patches.

Chasing a mammoth 405 in the fourth innings, the visitors succumbed to the Indian spin trio of Ravichandran Ashwin (3/52), Ravindra Jadeja (2/35) and debutant Jayant Yadav (3/30) who shared eight wickets amongst them.

Pacer Mohammed Shami bowled equally well to take two wickets.

Cook, who top-scored with 54 runs in the visitors' second essay, said his team showed a lot of character before going down.

"It wasn't a great moment to fight so hard, so it was disappointing to get out at the end. Think we saw the first day was easiest to bat, then you can see it became harder. It was a good toss to win, no doubt," he said after the match.

"From losing those five wickets on day two -- you have to score first-innings runs -- but from that moment we showed a lot of character and fight."

With the hosts India 1-0 up in the five-match Test series, Cook said England need to win the next two games to stay in the hunt.

"We made India work very hard. We played some good cricket at stages in these first two games. We need to win a couple of games to get ourselves back in the series," the southpaw said.

The teams will now head northward to Mohali to play the third game from November 26 to 30.

--IANS

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