London, Dec 20 (IANS): England batsman and former skipper Alastair Cook has said that he was ‘gutted’ to be left out of England's World Cup squad after fellow willower Eoin Morgan was confirmed as the new one-day captain.

Cook was dropped Friday from the 15-man squad to play matches in Australia next month and the World Cup after the 29-year-old failed miserably in the recent One Day Internationals (ODI) away at Sri Lanka, where they lost 2-5.

"I'm gutted to be left out of the World Cup squad and it is likely to take me a while to get over the disappointment," he said as quoted by bbc.com Saturday.

To make matters worse for Cook, he scored only 119 runs in the six matches he played. That stretched his ODI barren run to 45 runs without scoring a century.

The decision to drop Cook was made at the selectors meeting Friday.

England selector James Whitaker confirmed that Cook's lack of runs had prompted the decision to remove him as the skipper.

"Having reviewed the recent series against Sri Lanka, we came to the conclusion that there was no place for Alastair Cook amongst our strongest 15 one-day players," said Whitaker.