England Twenty20 captain Stuart Broad has welcomed the decision to allow Alastair Cook to remain with the squad as cover for the upcoming series against Pakistan.

Cook has been in impressive form during the ODI series, and the 50-over captain will now provide cover following a Ravi Bopara injury scare.

"It was very easy for Cookie to stay on for an extra three or four days to cover the squad and we can have a look at him in the T20 format. He is here as cover for a few injury scares, but he is available and keen to play," said Broad.

The Essex batsman has rarely been selected for T20 action but his recent high scoring performances have persuaded England to retain his services for the three-match series.

"He's not played a huge amount of T20 cricket for Essex so it is hard to gauge whether he is a good T20 player but you can see from his ODI form that he has developed scoring areas and shots and played some fantastic one day knocks for us," Broad added.

The first match in the series will take place in Dubai on Thursday.