Alastair Cook should step down if he is taking captaincy 'for granted', feels Nasser Hussain

Johannesburg: Former England skipper Nasser Hussain feels that Alastair Cook should step down as the captain of the current Test team and hand over captaincy to Joe Root if the left-handed opener feels he`s taking the job for granted.

"If he still feels the same way he did when he started, if every defeat hurts him as much now as it did then, I believe he should carry on," Hussain, one of Cook`s predecessors, was quoted as saying by Sport24.

"But if any part of him feels as if he`s taking the job for granted, then he should have a serious think about handing it over to Joe Root. It`s not a job you do lightly."

Ahead of England's tour to India, Cook had hinted about stepping down as captain after expressing uncertainly over his future as the leader of the Test squad.

"Deep down I don`t know how much longer I am going to carry on," he said in an interview with this month`s Cricketer magazine quoted by The Times newspaper.

"It could be two months, it could be a year."

But he later played down the speculations just when the Test series was about to kick off.

"I do look forward to the day when hopefully I can play a Test match as just a batter, there`s no doubt about that. If that happens I am going to really enjoy standing at first slip and being the bloke who makes suggestions to whoever`s in charge and not being the bloke who has to make the final decision," he said.

But speaking to reporters on the eve of the first Test, Cook clarified his comments saying, "It was just an honest answer to a question that is quite hard to answer. When someone asks how long do you see yourself captaining forward, we don`t really know, do you?"

Cook's captaincy is under scanner once again after England's poor show against Virat Kohli's men in the ongoing series.