Cook rebukes Pietersen dig, again

For the second time this year, Kevin Pietersen has suggested Alastair Cook should quit the England captaincy.

After England went 1-0 down in the Test series against India, which they came back to win 3-1, Pietersen used his newspaper column to advise Cook to go. This time Pietersen tweeted his dissatisfaction with England's one-day form, though Cook is just as disinclined to listen.

"Dear Alastair, if you care about England's chances this winter, pls resign and just concentrate on Test cricket...#getHalesin," Pietersen wrote on Twitter after England lost the second ODI to Sri Lanka by eight wickets.

But, following a difficult week, Cook reiterated his commitment to the job and to overseeing an upturn in form. He admitted he was feeling the pressure, over his lack of runs as much as the team's poor run, and that Pietersen was entitled to his view but said his future would not be determined by those "on the outside" of the England dressing room.

"People are totally entitled to their view, that's the nature of the beast when you're on the outside," Cook said. "People believe what they want to believe and in our dressing room, we've got to stay strong as a group, we're the guys who have the honour of playing for England at this precise moment in time and we're the guys with the opportunity to turn it around, not other people outside."

Pietersen has not played for England since the start of the year and was effectively sacked after the ruinous Ashes tour to Australia. His recent autobiography was not explicitly critical of Cook, calling him a "company man", but another woeful England batting display prompted Pietersen's call for Cook to resign and Alex Hales to be promoted as opener.

Cook made 22 at the Premadasa stadium, following a score of 10 in the first ODI, and he has gone 20 months without a one-day hundred. England have not won a series with Cook in charge since the New Zealand tour of 2013, although they did get to the final of the Champions Trophy the same year.

"I think you feel the heat when you're not scoring runs," Cook said. "Of course, the start of the tour, when you have two games and you don't score the runs you want, you're going to start feeling that. I've just got to do what I keep doing, keep believing with myself, keep doing my basics well."

Dear Alastair, if you care about England's chances this winter, pls resign and just concentrate on Test cricket...#getHalesin

— Kevin Pietersen (@KP24) November 29, 2014

Asked whether a fifth defeat in England's last six ODIs had shaken his conviction, he said: "No, I don't think it does, actually. From the first game, I thought we took a lot out of the way we went about our business. Obviously it helped Mo playing an extraordinary innings but we've got people capable of doing that. It'll be a dent to our confidence, we've got four days to the next game, how we respond will be really important."

The death of Phillip Hughes had overshadowed the match, with a minute's silence observed beforehand and flags at half-mast, although Cook did not attempt to use that as an excuse. England have also missed out on several practice sessions and one warm-up game due to poor weather.

"It has been a difficult day but that's the same for both sides, in terms of the fixture," he said. "We just never got going. In hindsight I probably would have changed my decision at the toss, I probably misread that a little bit. Probably as a batting unit we set our sights too high, playing on a similar wicket from two days ago and we just didn't adjust quick enough. I know it was a 45-over game, but 250 you'd have had a really good chance. But we probably thought it was a 300 wicket early on and we paid the price for that.

"You don't win any games when you don't get partnerships together. We know that, no one is deliberately trying to get out, no one is deliberately trying to not build a partnership ... But we just didn't get going today, whether that's the effect of the events over the last couple of days, not having a practice day yesterday might have contributed to it, I don't know. It's just been a weird couple of days to be honest with you and probably that showed in our performance."