Cook says playing T20 cricket for Essex helped him improve as ODI player

London, Feb 17(ANI): England one day cricket Alastair Cook has said playing Twenty 20 cricket for Essex has helped him emerge has a better one-day player.

"I think the change happened after I played my first 20 odd one-day games for England. I knew that if I wanted to play one-day cricket for England I would have to improve, I would quite simply have to score quicker," The Daily Mail quoted Cook, as saying.

"That's what I went back to working on with Graham Gooch and the Essex boys and the experience I got at Essex was invaluable. Playing Twenty20 cricket forced me to expand and made me realise what I could do. Then I tried to take that to one-day cricket," he added.

His comment came after he smashed two centuries in two consecutive One Day International against Pakistan thus helping England secure an unassailable 2-0 lead.

His recent performances have vindicated his 2008 statement when he admitted that he will have to learn new shots for Twenty 20 cricket.

"I will just have to learn some new shots. If cricket changes and Twenty20 becomes the predominant form of the game, I will react to that," Cook had said.

Cook is now eyeing a berth in Twenty 20 squad.

"I'd love to be in the Twenty20 side but it's a totally different format. They picked the squad for the games here and they've had a lot of success as a squad. I'm not in it at the moment but all I can do is try to score runs if I get a chance to play Twenty20," he said. (ANI)

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