Alastair Cook insisted yesterday that Kevin Pietersen is no longer a topic of conversation in the England dressing room and claimed that the players are eager to move on ahead of their one-day international series in Sri Lanka.

England fly out tomorrow for seven matches on the sub-continent as they begin a winter’s preparation for February’s World Cup in Australia and New Zealand.

Pietersen will not be on the plane, however, after he was axed from the international set-up earlier this year and launched a scathing attack on the England dressing room in an autobiography released in October.

“We’ve had a couple of weeks together and we haven’t felt the need to talk about it at all,” Cook said.

“It’s been a really good place to be around in the last couple of weeks. I think we have moved on — all the fall out from it has happened.

“In the summer I felt we were moving on as a side and then we had the release date — so everyone was talking about it.

“It’s all happened now, it’s all out now from his side and as players we’ve left it, there’s nothing more that can really come out.

“We just want to build and move forward as a side and as a captain, that’s a good place to be.”

Cook will be desperate to find some form in the shorter format of the game with his role as one-day captain still under scrutiny.

England were convincingly beaten by India last time out and the likes of Michael Vaughan and Graeme Swann have been vocal in their belief that Cook should step aside.

“Didn’t Michael Vaughan want me out as Test captain as well?” Cook said.

“That was about a week before and he actually had to admit he was wrong then as well.”