Cook crashes one-day ton for Essex

Alastair Cook's ambition to put together "a couple of gun years with the bat" has begun in perfect fashion, with the left-hander hitting form with a century in Essex's One-Day Cup victory over Gloucestershire.

Cook, England's highest runs-scorer in Test cricket, formed the foundation of the Essex innings of 8-315, making 127 from 134 deliveries with a dozen boundaries.

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In reply, Gloucestershire fell 30 runs short of their target, making 8-286 largely off the back of Phil Mustard's 90 and Ian Cockbain's 79, as Ravi Bopara claimed the bowling honours with 3-34.

Essex's victory at the County Ground in Chelmsford was their third straight, moving them into second place in the South Group of the tournament.

Earlier this week, Cook opened up about the chain of events that led to his resignation from the England Test captaincy.

The 32-year-old said he first felt doubt over his ability to keep leading England during the drawn Test series against Pakistan last winter and from there the thought scarcely left his mind.

"I started questioning myself on certain decisions, not just tactically on the pitch, but with leadership in general," Cook told The Times UK about that Pakistan series.

"There is so much about this team. You don't win an Ashes series (in 2015), having been such heavy underdogs as we were, and win them the way we did, and then go on and beat South Africa (in South Africa), like we did, without having a huge amount about you, but last year we didn’t push on from that.

"Not to beat Pakistan was disappointing.

"The question that I kept coming back to was, 'Am I leading the team forward?'"