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Alastair Cook has said he’s ready to take on the captaincy of the England Twenty20 side as Stuart Broad faces an extended period on the sidelines after suffering an injury to his right shoulder.
Broad’s torn shoulder muscle is his third serious injury in a year and means he will miss the final one-day international against India and, crucially, the Twenty20 games against the West Indies on Sept 23 and 25. He will also miss the one-day series in India next month but England remain hopeful he will recover in time to lead the team for the one-off Twenty20 international in Calcutta at the end of October.
England have different captains for the three forms of the game with Andrew Strauss leading the Test side, Cook the ODI team and Broad the T20 unit.
"I am always up for selection," Cook said. "It is out of my hands. I have stated that I want to play in all three forms of the game for England and we will have to see in the next 48 hours what happens. I will just have to wait and see."
Cook has overcome doubts a year ago that he was worthy of a continued place in the England side with a superb run of form, which was rewarded with the ODI captaincy. If there had been questions about his strengths in the shortened form of the game, they were answered by last week’s 63-ball 80 against India in the second ODI, which was reduced to 23 overs.
"It is an area of the game I knew I had to work on,” he explained. “In the last 24 months, when I was out of the one-day side, I played a lot more Twenty20 and one-day cricket with Essex and I think my game has improved and expanded, as the results have shown, but there is a lot more work to do."
The selectors meet on Tuesday to choose the team for the matches against the West Indies. Team director Andy Flower has already lost Twenty20 vice-captain Eoin Morgan because of a shoulder injury and will now have to do some more shuffling.
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