England captain Alastair Cook admitted yesterday that he has a selection conundrum ahead of the World Cup next year.

Though Cook has tried to play it down as the tournament is a few months away, he admitted that due to the poor showings against India in the recent one-day internationals it is becoming difficult to pick players based on performance.

England were embarassed on Tuesday as the tourists won by by nine wickets and comfortably wrapped up the series 3-0 with a game still left to play.

Coach Peter Moores said that the side are running out off time to select the best players for the tournament in Australia and New Zealand next year and with every defeat come for Cook to step aside as captain.

But the opening batsman stands by his earlier claim that he is the right person to lead England into the World Cup, even if he knows it will be difficult to stop India in the final game.

He said: “I think that’s the most frustrating thing and probably the hardest thing I’ve found throughout my captaincy — when you get behind in a series trying to turn it around, especially in the one-dayers when it happens so quickly,” he said.

“You know you’ve got to go out there and play with freedom, but when you keep losing wickets it’s very hard to do that.”

Speaking of selecting players for the World Cup, Cook admitted that, while it is becoming a problem, bad performances are not down to him and Moores but silly mistakes on the field.

“We’ve got a lot of thinking to do on selection,” he said.

“But the selection is at the moment, I think, a little bit irrelevant.

“It is about players performing and that’s why it’s becoming so hard, because players aren’t doing that.”

“I don’t think it (the strategy) needs to change. I just think we need to do it better.”