Cook calls for character

Captain Alastair Cook is confident England can bounce back from Friday's 126-run defeat in the the first one-day international with India.

Cook's opposite number Mahendra Singh Dhoni (87 not out) combined with Suresh Raina (61) to devastating effect as India piled on more than 150 runs in the final 15 overs of their innings. Despite their skipper's near run-a-ball 60 in reply, England never got into a challenging position - and a collapse of five wickets for 23 runs proved terminal.

"Of course, we're disappointed - it's a horrible feeling, losing," Cook said. "But what is important is the character we show now over the next couple of days and we don't lose that belief we've got in our side."

England will still hope they can consolidate last month's 3-0 win at home to India, and overturn the early deficit in four more matches over the next 10 days.

"We need to stay strong as a unit, which will test our team spirit over the next couple of weeks," added Cook. "But that character is there to deal with it."

England made room for rising star Jonny Bairstow and the returning Kevin Pietersen, at the expense of Ian Bell. but Cook does not believe the match was lost because of which personnel were chosen.

"It's not down to selection, I don't think," he said. "The 11 players who were lucky enough to play for England here didn't deliver the standards we needed to win. It was a tough selection call. Hindsight is always a wonderful thing. But we picked the XI we thought would win us the game."

England folded to 174 all out, in hapless response to 300 for seven, and it was Cook's departure - caught in the leg-side deep - which began the collapse.

"I took the right option, but like a few of our batsmen didn't execute the skill this time," he said. "When you need seven an over, you've got to try to get a boundary as well.

"You can't just keep milking ones, and then get a dot ball. We talked about that in the middle overs, and I think over the last 12 months you've seen an improvement in our play in that situation."