Former captain Nasser Hussain believes the timing of the ODI World Cup after the Ashes left England “physically and mentally exhausted”.
The Poms are licking their wounds after a disastrous World Cup campaign that saw the defending champions finish a lowly seventh and miss out on the semi-finals.
England also suffered the indignity of sitting on the bottom of the 10-team table for some time and losing to teams including Afghanistan and Sri Lanka.
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India will take on New Zealand in the first semi-final on Wednesday before Australia play South Africa in the other semi-final on Thursday for the a spot in the decider.
But plenty of questions are being asked about what went wrong for England, who have named a different looking squad for a white ball tour of the West Indies.
Hussain told the Daily Mail England’s World Cup campaign wasn’t helped by the tournament being held relatively soon after an intense Ashes series.
“It’s hard for England because of the timing of World Cups on the back of an Ashes series,” the former England captain said.
“There’s so much focus on the Ashes that come the end of it, you are mentally exhausted.
“You look at players like Chris Woakes and Mark Wood and both were mentally and physically exhausted. So it’s about planning across formats.”
England won the 2019 ODI World Cup before the Ashes was held later than usual in the English summer that year.
Hussain added it was important to have a “reset” between Test series and white ball campaigns.
“There was a white ball reset under (former captain Eoin) Morgan,” he said.
“Then there was a red ball reset under Stokes. Actually what we could do is have a reset across the board, which is what Indian cricket does really well.
“We need to give each format equal care and attention all the way through.
“It’s hard for England with the timing of a lot of these World Cup’s at the end of the summer so it’s about never taking your eye off any format because if you do, sides will go past you when you think that you’re okay.
“But that is not easy to do when you’ve got so many players playing all the time.”
Earlier in the tournament, Hussain said England’s players needed to take responsibility for the World Cup failure, adding that blaming cricket structures was a lame cop out.
After Australia’s poor start to the tournament, World Cup winner Brendon Julian said an Ashes hangover, fatigue and the oversaturated cricket schedule were no excuse for poor performances.
England swing axe for West Indies series
England have announced a squad for next month’s one-day international series in the Caribbean featuring just six survivors from their woeful World Cup defence in India.
Jos Buttler men’s won just three games and failed to reach the semi-finals. Nevertheless Buttler remains captain for the tour which sees three ODIs and five Twenty20s.
Promising batsman Harry Brook, all-rounder Liam Livingstone as well as pacemen Gus Atkinson, Brydon Carse and Sam Curran are the other World Cup survivors.
Multi-format regulars Jonny Bairstow, Joe Root and Mark Wood have been rested ahead of January’s Test series in India, with red-ball captain Ben Stokes heading straight for surgery on a longstanding knee injury.
But the decision to leave out batsman Dawid Malan, all-rounder Moeen Ali and seamer Chris Woakes could signal the end of the trio’s ODI careers.
Meanwhile, England cricket director Rob Key on Sunday surveyed the wreckage of the World Cup and admitted: “I look at what I’ve not done rather than blaming everyone else.” Key attempted to take the pressure off under-fire Australian white-ball coach Matthew Mott by explaining the Test side had been the priority during his 18 months in charge.
“Every single time a decision has been made around whether or not we focus on 50-over cricket, Test cricket or T20, I’ve always chosen Test cricket.”
With AFP