Alastair Cook urges Joe Root to face reality following Test series defeat to West Indies

Former England skipper Alastair Cook has urged England Test captain Joe Root to open up the issues instead of saying all the good things following the recent series losses against Australia and the West Indies. However, the former opener also praised Root as the most complete England batter he has ever seen.

After another series loss in the West Indies, Root took to his Twitter handle and shared that England have plenty of positives to take from the series. Root, who succeeded the veteran as the captain, also congratulated Kraigg Brathwaite on the West Indies' success.

However, Cook feels that England needs a reality check, and their attitude wasn't right during the Ashes series and the Windies tour. The veteran has also recalled their batting collapse in the third Test against the West Indies in Grenada. "I am a bit bored of all the positive chat because I don't think it was a sense of reality in that changing room. 

All the noise was that 'we've turned a corner, and our attitude is brilliant. Some of that stuff should have been a given. And it looked like a dig at the Australia tour, that their attitude there wasn't great." Cook said as quoted by ESPNcricinfo.

He continued, "Actually, from watching, I never saw them throw the towel in. They just weren't good enough to compete, and their batting under pressure folded, and the same thing happened in Grenada."

However, after the first two Tests ended in draws, England showed their worst batting performance of the series where they managed totals of 204 and 120 in two innings in the third Test as West Indies won the game convincingly.

The former England captain thinks Root has handled the outside noise quite well, and he has made everyone shut with his bat. He also remembered Root's 2021 Test performances and felt unbelievable. 

"The number of runs that Joe Root has scored is incredible. I struggled in 2014, scoring runs with that KP stuff in the background. So for him to handle that and not let his performance go is an unbelievable sign."

 "He's England's most complete batsman I've ever seen, but if juggling the captaincy would affect him, it would have affected him in the last eight months or so. To score 1700 runs, 1200 more than anyone else, and normally, it's untenable to do that," Cook further added.

Root added 1708 runs in 15 Test matches last year. However, many former England players are calling for Root to step down from the post of England Test captain.