Alastair Cook takes captaincy sledging in his stride

Alastair Cook today brushed aside the criticisms of his captaincy as if they were no more irritating than an Australian fly buzzing round his nose.

But while remaining distinctly unruffled by the excitable observations of the former Australia leg-spinner, Shane Warne, he conceded that he was not entirely immune.

“When someone makes a comment about you, it does change your blood pressure slightly,” said Cook (above) as he prepared for his first match of the tour against Australia A. “No one in the world can say it doesn’t but I’m confident and pretty skilful at being able to handle it because over the past seven years I’ve done it pretty well.”

Warne castigated Cook’s captaincy for being dull in an interview with English press at the weekend. “He lets the game drift, he waits for the game to come to him,” Warne said.

But Cook was quite content to let his results speak for themselves. Like his England team-mates, he knew precisely what Warne was about.

“It doesn’t seem times have changed at all does it since last summer?” he said. “Okay, it’s old news. I think it’s pretty much exactly what was said in the summer. We had pretty good results then as well.”