Birmingham, Aug 12: England opener Alastair Cook carried the mammoth England innings on his shoulders from start to finish with flair, ease and responsibility. The southpaw’s wicket – taken when he was just six short of his triple ton - prompted a declaration from captain Andrew Strauss (on 710). After having toiled for over 13 hours over two days, the 26-year-old batsman turned out to field for the side in the few overs that India were put in to face.

Cook spoke to the media about his record innings at the end of day’s play.

Excerpts from the conversation:

On whether it was a momentary lapse of concentration that cost him his triple century

I don’t know. I knew where he was going to bowl it, [I knew I had to] try and not do anything silly, just back on it a little bit. Also I thought I would just play him, but that is cricket.

On what was going through his mind as he batted on with thoughts like the landmark ahead of him and England’s imminent declaration

We wanted India to have ten overs tonight [but] we ended having a little bit more. We wanted to get as close to a 500-run lead as possible, so it all fit in quite well. And it was nice to get that wicket as well tonight.

On whether he would call his knock a ‘big daddy hundred’

It was almost a ‘grand-daddy hundred’. It was a good innings but more important, we’ve got ourselves in a really good position.

On his fitness (he didn’t face problems like cramping despite the long innings)

Well, I am lucky I don’t sweat that much. I am quite fit and I work really hard on my fitness and it helped that the conditions were not too hard as well. It’s a matter of keeping your concentration and physically that’s why you do the training - so you can bat a long period of time.

On whether it was the weather, or another scientific reason, that prevents him from sweating too much

I don’t know, I don’t sweat that much. It tends to help in conditions where it gets a lot hotter.

On whether batting coach Graham Gooch’s knock of 333 runs (v India at Lord’s in 1990) was on his mind during his innings

I was just trying to get as big a score as I could.

On whether the wicket was still good to bat on

It’s normally a good wicket. It’s only going to get worse - we know that it’s going to dry out and it took a bit of turn towards the end [of the day], which is good for us to see. It’s going to be hard work tomorrow, we’ve got to be patient [and] hopefully we can put enough balls in the right areas and take nine wickets.