Ability to lead offers limited opening for Cook

While he has become a mainstay of the Test side since his international bow five years ago, there have long been question marks over whether Cook’s style is suitable for the faster-paced limited-overs game.

He has played just 26 one-day internationals and four Twenty20 matches for his country and has not pulled on a coloured England shirt for 15 months, when he captained the tour to Bangladesh in Andrew Strauss’s absence.

His leadership credentials have once again proved to be his door to the one-day side following Strauss’s retirement from the format, and he believes he is ready to transfer his stellar recent form in the five-day format to the five-match series against Sri Lanka.

“As an international player you are always under pressure and you’ve always got to prove yourself,” he said.

“I’m excited by that challenge and I think my one-day game has evolved.

“In Bangladesh I scored runs and I scored them quickly. I know I have the talent and the skills to do it.

“Every time I wasn’t playing Test cricket I went back to Essex to play one-day cricket. It’s part of the skill-set, you need to develop the ability to change your method.

“I’m nowhere near the finished article and as a 26-year-old I’ve got a lot of work to do, but I’m prepared to do it.”

Cook’s limited-overs record is, perhaps, not as modest as it has been depicted in some quarters.

He has five half-centuries to go with a hundred against India and looked a more aggressive player when he opened the innings against Bangladesh last year, making 64 and 60 at virtually a run a ball.

His detractors remain though, most notably former England captain Mike Atherton, who this week described Cook as a “plodder” and also queried his usefulness in the field in one-dayers.

Asked about those comments, Cook joked: “It takes one to know one, I suppose.

“Everybody is entitled to their opinion. But I’ve scored a one-day hundred for England.

“I know I can score runs at the top of the order and I’m excited that I’m in a good place to go and show that.

“It doesn’t matter if it’s being ignored, I know I can score runs and score them quickly, I have my own style of doing it.”

Cook’s most obvious role model in terms of restructuring his Test game to suit the shorter form is his predecessor as ODI captain.

By the time he retired from one-dayers following this year’s World Cup, Strauss had developed into a risk-taking strokemaker and was one of the team’s danger men.

Cook now hopes to follow the same route.

“I think Straussy’s a great example for me,” he said.

“When he first started playing one-day cricket I think he had a strike-rate of about 65, maybe 70. Towards the end his career strike-rate was up to 80.

“You can evolve, you can improve and he certainly did that. Hopefully I can follow in his footsteps.”

Yorkshire all-rounder Tim Bresnan has been added to the squad for the series after recovering from a calf problem that has been a hindrance since the one-day series in Australia at the start of the year.

Bresnan is available immediately having responded to treatment on the injury that kept him out of the three-match Test series and Saturday’s stand-alone Twenty20.

His calf problem dates back to the winter tour of Australia.

Having played an important role in securing the Ashes in the last two Tests, Bresnan flew home from the one-day series after experiencing discomfort in his right leg. He returned for the World Cup but was again troubled by the injury in the sub-continent.

He has played two Twenty20 matches for Yorkshire in the last week, with modest returns of 0-27 off three overs and 1-47, but England will be glad to have him back.

With 42 one-day caps to his name he offers greater experience and is also considered one of the side’s most dependable limited-overs seamers.

Thilina Kandamby says Sri Lanka are losing two good men after interim coach Stuart Law joined Sanath Jayasuriya in departing the national side.

Kandamby, the tourists’ limited-overs vice-captain, hailed the impact both have had on the team as Jayasuriya heads into retirement and Law prepares to take over as Bangladesh’s new coach.

Law has agreed to take over the Tigers, following on from fellow Australian Jamie Siddons, whose contract was not renewed.

Law, assistant to Trevor Bayliss during his tenure, has been working with Sri Lanka as interim coach and, although he was keen to remain with the side, he was unable to coax a permanent contract from the board before the end of the current tour.

“He has been good for us and we will miss him,” said Kandamby

Huddersfield-born leg-spinner Tom Craddock, 21, marked his Championship debut with 4-70 off 30 overs, including eight maidens, as Division Two leaders Northamptonshire suffered their first defeat of the campaign, losing by 171 runs to Essex at Chelmsford.

The visitors were bowled out for 244 after they had started the day on 37-1 in pursuit of 416.

Craddock is on a two-month trial after impressing against Essex while playing for the Unicorns earlier in the season.