Cook believes his team have the ability to end England’s losing streak in India

England Test captain Alastair Cook has announced that he is ready to lead his team to victory against India in the upcoming Test series, and break the 28-year losing streak the national team have had in the country.

Cook believes that having Kevin Pietersen back in the lineup will also boost England’s chances of being victorious since he has a lot of experience with the conditions of the country and playing against Indian bowlers in the Indian Premier League (IPL).

Everyone knows that the England team struggle against spin bowling, and it was shown in their series against Pakistan, Sri Lanka and the West Indies.

But, England can breath a sigh of relief since Pietersen is actually the best player of Indian spin in the entire team, with a scoring rate of 3.57.

Cook noted that Pietersen has become “desperate and keen to pull his England shirt on” since signing his four-month central contract and completing his reintegration process.

However, Cook admitted that the whole Pietersen saga has tainted the good name of England cricket, while also leaving a bitter taste in the mouth of many of the senior players in the team.

Pietersen was dropped from the team after the second Test match against South Africa at Headingley, where he made a brilliant 149.

After the second Test, Pietersen was found guilty of sending derogatory text messages about former Test captain Andrew Strauss to the South African players.

There was further speculation about him sending tactical information to the Proteas as well, whereby he told them how to dismiss Strauss, but upon further investigation by the England and Wales Cricket Board (ECB), it turned out to be false.

Earlier in the week, Strauss noted that Pietersen’s reintegration into the squad would not be an easy process, but Cook wants everybody to get along and leave the entire incident in the past.

“It has been a difficult two months for us as an England side but for me as a captain the best possible outcome has happened, we have got a world-class player back in our team. It has been a tough couple of months for Kevin but he seems very contrite. He is desperate to be back playing, doing what he does best – scoring runs for England. As a captain that is what all I want. I want him to come back into the side as he was to score match-winning runs like he did in Colombo, like he did at Headingley. I am sure he will be desperately keen to do that. As a captain I wanted our best players in the team because that is how we know we can get the best results,” Cook said.

When asked if the relationship between the team and Pietersen would be the same as it was before the start of the second Test against South Africa, Cook admitted that it wouldn’t be, but added that the first steps in the positive direction had already been taken.

Cook is now looking for England to have that same kind of bond they did before going on to become the number one Test team in the world.

“Clearly we know how important team spirit and team harmony is because that is where all our strength has been in the last couple of years and it shows in the results, we know how hard we have to work at that to make sure we continue on that front. We will be working as hard as we can in the coming months to put the team in that spirit that we know makes us perform well,” Cook said.

Cook also knows that spin is going to be one of the major factors that decides the series since Indian pitches are famous for being spin-friendly.

“We know how important playing spin is, we did struggle in UAE, but the amount of work we did towards the latter part of the tour and then in Sri Lanka, we need to get as close to that point as soon as we can and build from there. Because we know how important playing spin is and how important first-innings runs are. What happened in UAE against Pakistan highlighted exactly where were at: we did struggle there. But I thought the improvements were made in Colombo and Galle. To draw a Test series out there was a really good achievement. It is important how we train against spin and how we start,” Cook added.

Former England all-rounder Andrew Flintoff was captain the last time England won a Test match in India, and Cook knows that the team will have to put on a special performance to beat the Indians, who are just like them at home, absolutely unstoppable.