Birmingham, Aug 13: Alastair Cook’s mammoth score of 294 runs was instrumental in England’s massive victory over India in the third Test at Edgbaston. Though he missed out on his triple-ton, his knock booked England the top spot in the ICC Test rankings and won him the Man-of-the-Match award.

Excerpts from a brief chat with Cook at the post-match presentation:

On whether there were any concerns about his not having performed well in the first two Tests against India

[It’s] always good to score runs. You are a little bit right, but a bit of work in that week paid the dividends.

On whether he made specific changes to his batting going into the third Test

Just put in some hard [yards] and match practice.

On whether he has had to work on his concentration and will power or whether those qualities are inherent in him

You can definitely work and improve. Over the first stage of my career I scored some runs [but] never got big hundreds and over the last twelve months for me [it’s been] a big area I want to improve; it’s certainly helped so far.

On whether it helps to play his own game in a batting line-up that has many different kinds of players

The top three [batsmen] - me, [Andrew] Strauss and Trotty [Jonathan Trott] - we know we’ve got to lay a platform for [the] attacking middle-order. And later in the day when the balls aren’t tight, you want those players to cash in. We know that we take the shine off the ball and everyone else goes with it.

On his fitness

That is one thing I’m really lucky about, fitness-wise.

On making a huge score in a match that took England to the top of the world Test rankings

Yes, [I’m] very pleased. It was a huge team effort to bowl India out twice on that wicket for less than 250 [runs].