Harry Brook was appointed England captain after Jos Buttler was removed from the leadership role following the ICC Champions Trophy 2025. He has taken a dig at the great players of England after 23 defeats in 34 ODIs.
The England team suffered a major setback in the 2023 ICC World Cup when it could not qualify for the semi-finals with just 3 wins in the tournament. While they reached the semi-finals of the T20 World Cup, they were eliminated from the group stage of the ICC Champions Trophy 2025 after three consecutive defeats.
Following this, in an unpleasant comment, Jos Buttler was sacked as captain and English Test vice-captain Harry Brook was made the captain of the England team in both white-ball formats.
England suffered another series defeat in ODI under the leadership of Harry Brook.
As England suffered another defeat in the ODI series against New Zealand, captain Harry Brook took aim at the English stars of the team. Despite fielding a strong team, the English have lost 23 of their last 34 matches in the 50-over format.
In the first ODI, the England team was all out for just 234 runs, in which captain Harry Brook alone scored more than 50% of the runs. They were then all out for just 175 runs in the second ODI, with Jamie Overton being the top scorer.
After such poor form, England will have to rethink their aggressive approach. Five of their top six players in the ODI team are also part of the England team in the Ashes. He has not yet scored a significant score of more than 250 runs in an innings.
“It’s not really much different to the way we play Test cricket,” Harry Brook said.
Brook has said that the approach with which he plays Test cricket is not very different from that of ODIs. Currently, they are ranked eighth in the ICC rankings, and if a team ranks below 10 by March 2027, they will have to play qualifiers for the World Cup.
Harry Brook said of the difficulties of changing formats, “It’s not really that different to the way we play Test cricket. We play aggressively in Test cricket, and it’s not too far off. Obviously, we haven’t played a lot of one-day cricket over the last several years.”
“I can’t put my finger on why we didn’t bat well. It’s one of those things. You come to play the second-best team in the world on their own ground and they beat us.”
“Everyone in that batting order is good enough to be able to deal with the swinging and seaming ball. In my eyes, it’s just an excuse, and they are good enough to be able to deal with it and score runs against it,” he said.
“He hasn’t performed well enough.” The England captain seems to be losing patience
While the focus is on the upcoming Ashes tour, England have failed to perform in the white-ball format. They have started preparations for the 2027 ICC World Cup to be co-hosted by South Africa, Zimbabwe and Namibia.
“You go out there to every single player and think, ‘Hey, there aren’t many teams in the world that don’t have him.’ We have five, six, maybe seven batsmen who will be in almost every team in the world,” the captain expressed confidence in the talent of the players who are part of the English playing XI.
“So yes, they haven’t performed well enough. It’s disappointing for the fans who want to watch us. We entertain people because they know we play such exciting cricket,” he said.
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