England captain Alastair Cook will “stay strong” in the remainder of the home series with India, accord­ing to coach Peter Moores after the opening batsman’s struggles con­tinued in the drawn first Test at Trent Bridge.

The latest in a run of a low scores came at Nottingham where the left-hander was bowled round his legs off the thigh pad for five to take his tally for the calendar year to a mere 97 runs in seven Test innings.

It also meant Cook had now gone 25 knocks since scoring the last of his England record 25 hundreds more than a year ago, during which time he has averaged a meagre 24.

Cook will be back in the spotlight on Thursday when the second Test starts at Lord’s, with the entire se­ries crammed into just 42 days.

“It is a tough time when you are not getting runs,” said Moores. “But Alastair is a tough player, as he has shown throughout his career.

“It is a five-match series, and in a five-match series I expect Alastair to come through strongly – because he is a top-flight player. He has to stay strong.”

Cook, and England, could do with the emergence of a frontline spinner particularly if the pitch at Lord’s is, in what seems to be some­thing of a trend in England this sea­son, as docile as Trent Bridge.

England have added Lancashire slow-left armer Simon Kerrigan to their squad after Moeen Ali, prima­rily a batsman, conceded more than 200 runs in the first Test.

But whether Kerrigan, whose lone previous Test saw him smashed for 53 runs in a mere eight wicketless overs by Australia at The Oval in last year’s drawn Ashes fi­nale, is the answer to the question of who is best-placed to fill the gap created by Graeme Swann’s retire­ment remains open to debate.

“He had a tough debut, yes,” Moores, who knows Kerrigan well from his time as Lancashire coach, admitted. “He has worked ex­tremely hard to get himself where he wants to be. He is a very talented bowler, a very talented young man.”

“There’s not been a frontline spinner picked in the Tests so far, so you’d be lying a little bit if you said you weren’t looking at that as a goal,” said Kerrigan.