England's Cook shrugs off captaincy criticism

Chennai : England's Alastair Cook on Thursday shrugged off criticism of his captaincy ahead of the fifth and final Test against India in Chennai, saying one has to live and die by the decisions made.

The tourists, who lost the series 3-0 trail after the fourth Test loss in Mumbai, started off with a strong performance in the first drawn Test in Rajkot but could not keep pace with top-ranked India.

Cook's role as a leader has been brought into question after the three consecutive defeats but he insisted that it is all part of the job.

"You get judged on your results as a captain don't you? And when you lose games of cricket you are under fire, it happens to everyone," Cook said.

"When Virat (Kohli) loses games of cricket he'll get criticised, when I lose games of cricket I get criticised. That's part and parcel of the job.

"Look at Dylan Hartley the England rugby captain. He wins games of rugby and it's all flying and obviously an incident last week (when he hit an opponent in the face) he gets criticised," added Cook.

Cook admitted reading the pitch wrong in the Mohali Test and also regretted using just two spinners in Mumbai.

"When you're part of the leadership group you live and die by those decisions and when it's going well everybody thinks you're brilliant and when you're doing badly everybody thinks you're terrible," he said.

Cook insisted England's effort could not be criticised as they search for a consolation win.