Root defends selection policy after India thumping

England captain Joe Root has promised not to brush over any hard questions raised by a thumping series defeat in India and reckons his side would be "stupid" not to learn from the chastening experience.

A home win had always been the likeliest result for India, who have not lost as hosts since Root's debut tour nine years ago.

Yet the individual margins told a more eye-watering tale than the overall 3-1 scoreline.

After starting in Chennai with a big win of their own, England have been put away by 317 runs, 10 wickets and, on Saturday, by an innings and 25 runs.

Spinners Ravichandran Ashwin and Axar Patel have dominated England to the tune of 59 wickets at an average of 12.83 and Root wants his side to confront their shortcomings and build on them.

"The guys have to embrace what's happened. They have to understand it and be realistic," he said.

"We would be stupid to come away from this trip and say, 'oh, it's India - extreme conditions, the ball was spinning and skidding on, it was impossible to bat'.

"That would be the wrong attitude. We need to come away from here and say, 'you know what, there are lots of things that we can get better at'.

"Yes, India have world-class spinners and high performers, at home in particular, but we can be better."

When Root and head coach Chris Silverwood sit down to debrief on the series, there are couple of areas that they need to address.

The first is their rest and rotation policy, an idea borne out of the unforgiving schedule and the unique challenges of travelling in restrictive bio-secure bubbles.

The Test side was clearly compromised, in deference to Eoin Morgan's limited-overs group, with the likes of Jos Buttler, Moeen Ali, Jonny Bairstow and Mark Wood missing parts of the series.

"We've said all along that making sure that players are looked after is the priority and that their welfare and well-being is paramount. We've got to follow that through," reasoned Root.

"I think it's important we learn lessons for next time around, but it was done with the best interests of the England team and the three formats. It's not an ideal, perfect scenario.

"As a captain, you want all your players available for selection as often as possible and that's not been the case on this tour.

"But we've got to get past the stage of playing people until they fall over. Yes, we might not get it right all the time to start with, but we need to move forward and look for a better way and hopefully we find that better way quickly."

Also on the agenda will be team selection, having left themselves hamstrung with the wrong attack in each of the last two games.

"I think it's easy to look at selection in hindsight at the back end of a series when things haven't gone your way. It's obvious these things will be looked at," said Root.