Cook itching to return to action

Exhaustion is the common theme coming out of England's eventful winter, with several of the key squad members having gone to ground since their return from the World Cup, with no intention of re-emerging until mid-May at the earliest. For Alastair Cook, however, the situation could hardly be more different. Having more or less been in stasis since he completed his starring role in the Ashes back in January, he's back at the County Ground in Essex, and gagging to get stuck into Friday's first round of the County Championship. It's fair to say his feet are firmly back on the ground after an unforgettable tally of 766 runs in five Tests against Australia.

Cook was the centre of all attention at Essex's pre-season press day in Chelmsford on Tuesday, as he braved the April chill alongside his county team-mates. His international winter had ended on the morning after the night before in Sydney back in January, when he flew home to Heathrow less than 24 hours after England's 3-1 Ashes triumph had been secured, while his team-mates boarded a bus to Canberra to begin the ill-fated one-day leg of their travels.

The frustration of his one-day omission is still apparent, though Cook has not exactly been brooding in the interim. An Essex pre-season tour of Barbados was followed this week by his first first-class outing of the season against Cambridge, a match in which he scored a second-innings century to confirm his readiness for the challenges ahead. And in between whiles, he's had the challenge of lambing season on his girlfriend Alice's farm to keep him busy, and away from the trappings of fame that his efforts in Australia might have earned. "I'm a little bit more recognisable, but to be honest it's the same old, same old," he said. "The sheep don't know what's happened."

While Cook has been spared an endless round of internal flights and hotel transfers during the World Cup, he has been subjected to a very different type of beasting by his mentor and coach, Graham Gooch, who was never a man to rest on his laurels during his own 20-year international career, and is determined to instil the same standards in his star pupil. Along with Mark Pettini, his former housemate and ex-county captain, Cook has been rising at 6am to take part in a training regime called "The Triangle", which involves lugging bricks through the woods near Gooch's house in Chelmsford.

"There's three sides to the triangle so you run one, jog one, run one and keep going," Cook said. "We were carrying bricks because he [Gooch] thought it was fun and he was on his bike with the speedo telling us how fast to go and, if we slowed, telling us to speed up. He enjoyed it, but I don't think we did. He wouldn't even let us in the house for breakfast afterwards -- he set the dogs on us. Thankfully, he went off to the World Cup."

Cook's post-Ashes life hasn't been entirely devoid of glamour. He went along to the Millennium Stadium to watch England's Six Nations victory over Wales in February, and discovered that even in Cardiff he is an instantly recognisable figure. That is perhaps just as well, seeing as England's first Test of the new season takes place in the city, against Sri Lanka on May 26. And with India also touring in the second half of the summer, a big season looms against the two teams who contested the World Cup final last week.

"It's a really important summer again for English cricket, and part of the reason is we want to be the No. 1 ranked side in the world," said Cook. "If we want to do that we have to beat two high-ranked sides as well this summer. It's an open ambition for the side, we see it as part of a journey to get to No.1, and to get to that we have to beat Sri Lanka and India. Carrying on from the Ashes now, we hope it's another exciting, successful summer."

There may be more international duties for Cook than just the seven Tests, however, given that Andrew Strauss is rumoured to be considering retirement from ODI cricket. Were that to happen, there could be a vacancy for Cook at the top of the order in both formats, and he might even slot straight in as captain, given that he performed the role with some distinction on the tour of Bangladesh back in March 2010.

"I haven't heard anything as you can well imagine," said Cook. "Look, Straussy's done a fantastic job since 2009. Okay, the World Cup didn't go as well as we'd all hoped it could have done, but the team's one-day cricket had been going on a real upward curve.

"The scheduling hasn't helped us, let's be honest," he added. "Five months away, playing that intense cricket it's almost impossible to keep the standards as high as we'd like. Looking from afar, the guys looked very tired. Speaking to a couple of them, they were tired so they tried to hide it, but unfortunately they couldn't hit the standards they'd have liked."

With that in mind, Cook has looked upon his break from international action in two minds. "It was disappointing not being at the World Cup but you've got to use it to your advantage," he said. "You have three weeks to do nothing and then work as hard as you can in February and March to get yourself ready and hopefully stuff you do now, you'll bank for later on.

"It was frustrating because I was in as good form as I've ever been, and as much as it was nice to be back home for me personally I felt wasted because form like that doesn't come very often. But the selectors went a different way and you've got to live with that. I've got a good relationship with Andy Flower, he spoke to me and Geoff Miller, and that is the way they went and unfortunately I couldn't do anything about it."