England play 7 one-day Internationals in Sri Lanka from Nov. 26 to Dec 16

Alastair Cook believes England's sole focus on one-day cricket between now and the World Cup is an "exciting" chance to mount a strong challenge.

Following victory in the final match of their one-day international series against India, Cook's side will tour Sri Lanka in November and December.

A tri-series in Australia follows ahead of the World Cup starting in February.

"We can concentrate on improving. Last time we had a focus like this we got to the Champions Trophy final," said Cook.

"We've got an extended period of working on our games in one-day cricket which we have never had before.

"We know we've got to work on being able to knock spin around better so we can take the better option of when we want to take the big shot, not when we are forced to play a big shot.

"We also know later on in the game we struggle with death bowling a little bit but I think we've improved a lot in the last six months."

England will play seven one-day internationals in Sri Lanka between 26 November and 16 December, before meeting hosts Australia and India in a tri-series down under in January and February.

They open their World Cup campaign against Australia in Melbourne on 14 February.

"It's exciting that we've got this opportunity to really take big steps forward in one-day cricket and hopefully do something special at the end of it," said Cook.

After three heavy defeats against India, England reversed their poor run of form in 50-over cricket with a 41-run win in the final match of the series at Headingley last Friday.

No assurances over captaincy - Cook Joe Root's 113 laid the foundations for success, and the 23-year-old drew praise from his skipper, who contributed 46.

"He played beautifully," added Cook.

"It was one of those wickets where knocking ones was quite hard but if you went for the big shot it came on quite nicely.

"Rooty has had an outstanding summer. He's very adaptable and that is one of his greatest strengths. Coming in at number four, that role suits him."

India skipper Mahendra Dhoni blamed his side's defeat on a number of "soft dismissals".

"We are capable of getting 90-100 in the last 10 overs, but soft dismissals let us down," said Dhoni.

"I think 300 was a par score on that wicket. To some extent we may have (taken our foot off the gas) and that is something we have to improve.

"What's very important for us is to improve our last 10 overs of bowling. Mohammed Shami is good and doing the job for us but we need our other fast bowlers to step up a bit."