Former England captain and one of the legends of the game, Alastair Cook has slammed Jos Buttler and his company for the severe loss they got against West Indies in the first ODI played at Sir Vivian Richards Stadium, Antigua.
While playing the first game, the 2019 World Champions failed to defend a massive target of 326 runs against West Indies.
Cook criticized the English side for participating in an international game without having practice and knowing the conditions of the Caribbean country. He emphasized the importance of England playing practice matches to gain insights into how the pitch behaves.
“I expect England to get better but you can’t just keep going into the series without match practice,” Alastair Cook said on TNT Sports.
“I know the schedule is really hard and other things but something has to be done to give the players a better chance to perform straight away,” he further added.
Cook expressed the sentiment that England players looked rusty, suggesting that they seemed out of touch with the ODI format of the game.
“No warm-up games, it doesn’t matter how many scenarios you do, a few of the lads were out in Abu Dhabi, they’ve had some scenario practice but under pressure today, they looked rusty,” Cook said.
He further added, “They were poor with the new ball. In particular Sam Curran, he’s normally that banker, the guy under pressure, certainly in T20 cricket he’s been so good at the death but he was missing his mark by a long way.”
