England great Nasser Hussain has offered a bizarre excuse as England comes to grips with what was a nightmare Cricket World Cup.
The title holders were a pre-tournament favourite to retain the Cup, but won just three of nine games and were sent home with their tail between their legs.
England’s failure to qualify for the semi-finals has left pundits around the country scrambling to pinpoint what went wrong in India.
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But Hussain has unearthed what might be the strangest reason yet, highlighting the Ashes Test series against Australia as a key contributor.
“It’s hard for England because of the timing of World Cups on the back of an Ashes series,” Hussain told the UK’s Daily Mail.
“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.
“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 Cups at the end of the (UK) 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 OK.
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“But that is not easy to do when you’ve got so many players playing all the time.”
Hussain’s comments raised eyebrows given the other team involved in the Ashes – Australia – is on a seven-game win streak at the World Cup and headed for a semi-final clash against South Africa.
Social media satire account Dan Liebke tweeted, “I’m enjoying the English post-mortems on their World Cup non-defence. I particularly like this one from Nasser Hussain, where he bemoans how difficult it is, because England have to play both Ashes and World Cups.
“Poor old England. No other nation understands how hard that is.”
The Ashes finished on August 1 with a 2-2 series draw.
Making Hussain’s comments even weirder is the fact Australia has more Ashes players backing up at the World Cup than England did.
Woakes, Wood, Jonny Bairstow, Harry Brook, Joe Root, Moeen Ali and Ben Stokes were England’s Test players who featured at the World Cup.
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Australia has had three more – Alex Carey, Travis Head, Marnus Labuschagne, Steve Smith, David Warner, Cameron Green, Mitchell Marsh, Pat Cummins, Josh Hazlewood, Mitchell Starc.
On top of that, England was the home side during the Ashes, while Australia’s players have barely been home since flying to the UK for the World Test Championship final in June.
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