ENGLAND are drooling at an unaccustomed opportunity for proper World Cup preparation – yet only after they settle their Cook quandary can they begin plotting a successful campaign this winter.

Captain Alastair Cook and coach Peter Moores have both expounded in recent press conferences about England’s wall-towall 50-over programme before they face Australia in their Melbourne World Cup opener on Valentine’s Day next year.

Seven matches in Sri Lanka before Christmas, then a minimum four Down Under against Australia and India in the new year, provide an unprecedented chance for England to finetune plans as they try to become first-time worldbeaters.

Never in ten previous failed attempts, dating back almost 40 years, have they been granted an unbroken sequence to devote attention solely to the demands of one-day international cricket.

There is a snag, though.

Cook and Moores may be full of anticipation, but until England announce their squad, and captain, later this month to travel to Sri Lanka, only the coach knows for sure he will be involved.

Cook’s failure to make an ODI century in his last 39 innings, coupled with his sub-80 strike rate, have led to questions marks and criticism against the 29-year-old from various sources, as was also the case for much of the Test summer.

There was no respite for Cook during the 3-1 ODI series defeat, and Moores was in no mood after a win for Eoin Morgan’s Twenty20 team at Edgbaston on Sunday to speak out of turn, before appropriate discussions have taken place with his fellow selectors.

He could therefore only prolong the agony for Cook.

“We are going to sit and look at every position, which is right, because we’ve got to pick an England team to win a World Cup,” he said.

“It would be wrong to not look very robustly at every situation in that team, to make sure we do it right.

“I listen to all people’s views and I sit in a room with three other selectors, and we make the decision that we think is right.”