England still the pinnacle for Woakes as he tries to extend international career

Woakes, who was integral to England winning the ICC Men’s Cricket World Cup 2019 last summer at home, has had a long and hard international season, but will now enjoy a bit of a rest, after pulling out of the 2020 Indian Premier League, and Woakes hopes he can use the downtime to good effect and come back fresher and better.

"I want to play for England as long as possible - that's still the pinnacle for me," Woakes told reporters in Sri Lanka, where he took 2/21 in a warm-up match against a Sri Lanka Cricket XI, in preparation of the upcoming two-Test series.

"I just feel like I'd been on a bit of a treadmill and I needed to get off for a bit of a breather. From a mental point of view it's about recharging those batteries."

Woakes is also realistic about his chances of making England’s squad for the ICC T20 World Cup later this year in Australia. With much of England’s focus over the last year on 50-over cricket as they sought their maiden World Cup title in the format, Woakes largely spent his time out of the England T20 squad, but he wouldn’t exchange it for anything else, as England ended up being successful in their campaign.

"I suppose I don't know the answer to why that [him not playing T20Is] happened. I think it happened gradually. The 50-over World Cup was prioritised, which was right, and during that period I was rested during a lot of T20 series. Would I want to change that or have it any other way? No, because it meant that I focused more on 50-over cricket and that has made me a World Cup winner - you can't take that away.

"Hopefully, I’ve extended my career rather than trying to spread it across all three formats."