England must improve, says Alastair Cook

England will play five one-day internationals in India

Captain Alastair Cook said England must improve the way they play spin after losing by 126 runs in the opening one-day international against India.

Chasing 301 to win, England appeared to be fairly well set at 111-2 before collapsing to 174 all out.

"We're going to have to learn from this, and that's the beauty of a five-match series," Cook said.

"Playing against spin is an issue, and that's a skill thing. We're going to work hard in the next couple of days."

England beat the world champions 3-0 on home soil in September, but struggled on a typically slow, turning, subcontinental wicket.

After losing the toss, they allowed India to recover from 123-4 in the 29th over to post 300-7, and were bowled out by India's spin pair of Ravichandran Ashwin and Ravindra Jadeja.

"I think 260, 270 would have been a good total on that wicket," said Cook.

"It was an important toss to win because we saw at the end that the ball kept low, but fair play to India, they out-skilled us in all three departments.

"All three departments weren't up to the standards we've shown in the past. That's why we are on the back end of a heavy defeat.

"Those last 20 overs when we fielded, I think they scored 180 runs. It was 30 or 40 too many on that wicket.

"The pitch did misbehave [in our innings]. But I'm not blaming that at all."

Dhoni, named man of the match for his unbeaten 87 off 70 balls, admitted the home conditions had suited his team better.

He said: "We got a bit speculative last night and sent someone to see if there was dew on the pitch, so that was one of the reasons we played with three seamers and two spinners.

"I think we batted well and, although we lost wickets at some important moments, overall the batting was very good.

"When we saw the wicket and the way it was behaving, we thought 250 would be a good score but we batted really well in the last few overs."