Bresnan: England "left behind” in one-day cricket

England have crashed to four defeats from five matches on the big stage, with yesterday’s loss to Bangladesh sending them out at the group stage with a game to spare.

And the Yorkshireman thinks the problem is a chronic one.

“It’s a shocker, it’s difficult to justify not getting through to the quarterfinals,” he said. “As groups go you would expect to qualify from this one. But the game has moved on. The rest of the world have sprinted ahead and we’ve been left behind a little bit.

“England are a strong side on paper but they’re struggling to put in performances. We’re lacking a few match-winning efforts from the senior players and it’s a difficult time for the side.”

Veteran seamer Ryan Sidebottom was part of the England side that won the World Twenty20 in 2010, an isolated moment of success in global limited-overs tournaments. He is critical of some of the selection decisions going into the tournament and expects some awkward questions to be asked when the squad returns home.

“We had an ideal opportunity to pick some of the players who have played regularly in the Big Bash or the IPL and we didn’t take it… we even left it until the last minute to pick Alex Hales,” he said.  “I think there have to be changes, but we’ll see.” 

Former England captain Nasser Hussain believes that for all the talk of tactics and coaching, it is England’s players who must take responsibility for the failures.

“It’s gone wrong right from the start, for years in fact,” Hussain told Sky Sports. “There have been some mistakes made in this tournament but every time we have the same thing. David Lloyd, Ashley Giles, Duncan Fletcher – the moment we’re knocked out, the coach goes.

“The top and the bottom need to look at themselves. First of all, the players need to look at themselves and take responsibility.”

Hussain also claimed the ECB must be bolder in their selections. 

“The ECB have to ask themselves – are we producing the right style of cricketer? And if we are why weren’t they picked earlier?” Hussain continued.

Andrew Strauss tasted World Cup disappointment in 2011 when he resigned as England’s one-day captain and retired from the shorter format of the game after a quarter-final defeat to Sri Lanka.

“The truth is we’re not good enough,” Strauss told Sky Sports. “That goes back to the structure of English cricket – we’ve been poor for 20 years in one-day cricket, we’ll be poor for another 20 years unless we change the way we play our domestic one-day cricket.”

Strauss added: “The question is, do we actually care about one-day cricket? We talk about it a lot over a World Cup but the rest of the time, it’s all about the Ashes and getting to number one in Test cricket.

“It’s about priorities and if we’re honest with ourselves, we’ve never really prioritised one-day cricket.”