Cork blasts decision

Cork: says England should not have a day off

Why are we giving England players days off when we are four games down and looks like we will lose all seven?

Dominic Cork
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Former England bowler Dominic Cork told Sky Sports News that the decision to cancel training in the middle of the seven-game series against India is the wrong one.

England are 4-0 down in the series and following a management meeting involving coach Peter Moores and his backroom staff, captain Kevin Pietersen and senior players Paul Collingwood and Andrew Flintoff, they decided to cancel a net session in order to hold a team meeting.

Cork, who is now at Hampshire, said a day-off in the middle of a series where England have struggled for form is a bad one.

"Why are we giving England players days off when we are four games down and it looks like we will lose all seven?" he asked.

"The guys need to have a good look at themselves and say - right we aren't playing well and the only way to play well is to stick together, practice hard and keep practicing until we win a game."

Form

Cork also said that the ECB should take responsibility for England's poor one-day form.

He said: "This goes back to when the ECB decided that no England player should be involved in the 20/20 or the IPL I think that has a big bearing on one-day cricket and where the England team stands at the moment.

"They made a decision that England players wouldn't be able to play at that level and the ECB should have a good look at themselves because now the England one-day team is struggling.

"They have not been out there long enough and they are playing appalling cricket at the moment within their tactics. For them to be sitting in the hotel now saying we are not playing well is not good enough."

Selection

Cork also criticised selection policies at international level.

"We are going back to when David Graveny was chairman of the selectors and he was saying we are preparing for the West Indies and that turned out to be a nightmare," he said.

"Now we have a guy in Peter Moore who ran the academy so all these guys coming out of the academies are his protégées anyway.

"All the while we have three quite serious players in Dimitry Mascarenhas, Tim Bresnan and Darren Maddy out there who don't even make the one-day squad but are players that actually win the Hong Kong sixes and they are not even considered and this is my big issue with selection."

He said that England could still return to form in Test series cricket but that they would struggle in ODIs.

"I just don't see how we can win a game when not one of those top six batsmen can score more then 50 runs. They have to really keep getting hundreds and give the bowlers a chance."