England's Joe Root Still Has Twenty20 World Cup Vision

Joe Root still has ambitions to break into England's powerful batting line-up for the Twenty20 World Cup, with the Test captain insisting the controversial rest-and-rotation policy was "being put

"I am desperate to play for England across all the formats as much as I can," he added ahead of Thursday's second ODI against Sri Lanka at the Oval.

"In a way it's not a conversation I need to have (with the selectors). It is their decision and I am sure that they will pick the squad they think will win the tournament -- all I can do is force my case."

England, who have lost four of their past five Tests, have been criticised for how they implemented a rest-and-rotation policy, designed in response to the pressures of "bio-secure cricket" during the Covid pandemic.

It left Root unable to field his strongest side for much of this year's 3-1 series loss in India and again for the more recent 1-0 defeat by New Zealand, his first home campaign reverse as captain.

Senior players such as Ben Stokes, Jos Buttler, Jonny Bairstow and Chris Woakes were all rested at various times. But Root said he expected the red-ball side, with a home Test series against India to come before an Ashes tour of Australia later in the year, to be at full strength from now on.

"We are coming into a period of time now where rest and rotation is put behind us," he said. "With Covid, and the amount of cricket that we've had, there's been compromises made over different formats and different teams."

"We now have 10 very hard Test matches against two brilliant opposition teams coming up but it is a great opportunity for us to play some strong cricket and, if everyone is fit and available, we will have a good team ourselves."

"I'd like to think that over the next five Test matches we'll be trying to play our strongest side."