karlpejera: No reason to doubt Alastair Cook as an England one-day force

The new, improved opening batsman is arguably worthy of a place in the one-day side even if he is not captain

Andrew Strauss announced his decision to retire from one-day international cricket via an England and Wales Cricket Board-organised press conference. Shane Warne told us that his career with the Rajasthan Royals would be over at the end of this Indian Premier League season via Twitter. No surprises there then.

What is a little odd is that the news of Warne's final retirement has caused barely a ripple over here. This is partly because the IPL, from this vantage point, has lost much of its lustre. Is it too anglocentric to conclude that the IPL has become nothing more than a cash cow, beloved of Indian celebrity and cricketers in pursuit of a pension, but of minimal cricketing relevance?

I meandered through the plush Long Room of the County Ground at Taunton last week and the IPL was on the TV. The great Jacques Kallis was batting. Not a soul stopped to watch. They appeared to be far more eager to keep their eyes on Somerset's Peter Trego bowling to Gareth Andrew of Worcestershire.

Warne is one of the greatest cricketers of all time, who single-handedly rejuvenated the art of wrist-spin bowling, whose magnetism has attracted thousands to the game. Yet his retirement from the Rajasthan Royals and therefore from any sort of cricket does not seem to matter much. His previous "retirements" were far more significant. By contrast Strauss's departure from ODI cricket has caused quite a stir, even though it makes perfect sense to me.

The World Cup is always something of a watershed, especially so after a World Cup in which the 50-over format has been rejuvenated. Once we had waded through the preliminary stages in the subcontinent the games really mattered. This provided such a stark contrast to so many of those ODIs, which are part of a five- or seven-match series. Why should Strauss hang on for more of those? Perversely the success of the World Cup has diminished even further the relevance of all the ODIs in between. Since there was no way that Strauss could ever make the next World Cup, the sensible thing for him was to go.

The limpest reason why Alastair Cook should succeed Strauss is that he is the least worst choice but that does not make the selectors' reasoning invalid. Who else could they have appointed? Kevin Pietersen after his early departure from the World Cup ? and his previous crack at the captaincy ? was not ideal. Is Ian Bell that much more secure in his place in the ODI side than Cook, leaving aside his captaincy credentials? Paul Collingwood is surely too old and not guaranteed his place anymore, Stuart Broad is too young for both jobs, Graeme Swann too much of risk (though it might have reduced his wisecracking ratio ? I'll leave you to decide if that would be a good thing).

There was a strong case for depending upon the old Australian system of picking the best XI and then looking for a captain. Yet, by my calculation, that method could easily have led us to Cook. With Strauss out of the equation, where are the openers? England had no idea who they should be in the World Cup once Pietersen had gone home. Remember that England had embarked on their one-day strategy before Cook batted so brilliantly in the Ashes series. The new, improved Cook arguably deserves a place in the ODI side even if he is not captain.

There are concerns that the job might diminish Cook at Test level. But this argument could be applied to any of the other candidates. We do know that Cook enjoyed the task when he took charge of the one-day side in Bangladesh. In three matches he averaged 52 with a strike-rate of 90 and he is supposed to be weak against spin, the one area in which Bangladesh have international quality. During the tour the captaincy seemed to enhance his play.

There is also the question of succession management. Following the Australian model there is much to be said for an aspiring Test captain to acclimatise in ODI cricket. That is how Steve Waugh and Ricky Ponting ? and indeed Michael Vaughan ? started. The experience should help Cook or inform us that he is not suitable as a Test captain.

It is true that there are now three England captains and Andy Flower has acknowledged that he is not sure how this will work. But this situation is far better than appointing the wrong captain, simply because he is available for all three forms of the game. That was the road down which Hugh Morris and Geoff Miller took the team three years ago and it was almost disastrous.

They are more on the ball when they leave open the possibility, which will be difficult to execute, of resting the cricket director, Flower, as well as some senior players. Indeed Morris and Miller, ex-cricketers both, are also rightly sympathetic to the volume of cricket and the unrelenting schedules to which our best international players are now subjected.

The commercial men protest that it is quite possible for the England players to play so much cricket. After all, they are all very well paid now and most of them will have an eye on the IPL. And, of course, the commercial men are right. Our cricketers can play so much cricket without significant physical risk. The only problem is that, no matter how good their intentions, they end up doing so without any spark, their instincts and their minds dulled as they go about their business on dutiful automatic pilot. Is that really what we want?

Vic Marks

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