“It was definitely going through my mind,” Brook said of the potential that he would lose his job, before adding that he had not at any stage considered resigning. “Never came into my mind. I left that decision to the hierarchy and, look, if they’d have sacked me from being captain, then I’d have been perfectly fine with it, as long as I was still playing cricket for England.

“Probably, yeah,” he added, when asked if he felt lucky to keep his job. “I think I’ve got a little bit of work to do to try and regain the trust of the players. I said sorry to them yesterday. I felt like I needed to say sorry for my actions. It’s not acceptable as a player, but as a captain it’s really not acceptable to do what I did in New Zealand. I’ll be the first person to say that. I hold my hands up.”

In the aftermath of the incident, which was kept private by England until after the Ashes had concluded, Brook sought help from Test captain Ben Stokes, who himself was involved in a high-profile nightclub fight in 2018.

“He obviously wasn’t best pleased at what I’d done,” Brook said. “But he tried to help me through it and he knows exactly what it feels like to be in this situation. We had a few conversations, but we quickly moved on.”

The news broke amid allegations of a drinking culture in English cricket,  after players were regularly seen drinking alcohol during England’s tour of Australia.

“No, there’s no drinking culture at all,” Brook said. “Like I said, everybody has the ability to say no. If you want a drink, if you don’t want a drink, you’re allowed to make that decision yourself.

“It wasn’t just drinking [in Australia]. We weren’t just going out and getting leathered every day. We were having a few drinks here and there. We were playing plenty of golf, going to nice cafes, having coffees but we had a few drinks here and there. I don’t think that’s a bad thing. It’s just what human beings do.”

Despite this, England have introduced a curfew for their tour of Sri Lanka, with playing staff not allowed out past midnight.

“That’s been made as a group decision,” Brook said. “We think that it’s the best thing going forward, for the time being, to be able to put us in situations where we can win games of cricket and perform to the best of our ability.”

England play three ODIs against Sri Lanka, starting on Thursday in Colombo, before playing three T20Is ahead of next month’s World Cup. England have struggled of late in the 50-over format, losing 11 of their past 15 matches. That poor run of form will add extra pressure to the position of head coach Brendon McCullum, whom Brook threw his support behind, calling him “the best head coach I’ve had by a million miles”.

England have made a number of changes to their team since their last outing against New Zealand three months ago, with the return of Zak Crawley to the top of the order the most noticeable change. Crawley replaces Jamie Smith as opener, and will play his first List A game in over two years, having last played for England in December 2023. Elsewhere, Liam Dawson has been selected as the second spinner to accompany Adil Rashid in the middle-overs.

England :  Zak Crawley,  Ben Duckett,  Joe Root,  Jacob Bethell,  Harry Brook (capt),  Jos Buttler (wk),  Will Jacks,  Sam Curran,  Jamie Overton,  Liam Dawson,  Adil Rashid

[Cricinfo]