Kevin Pietersen has slammed the England team, led by Jos Buttler, for not having even one practice session after their loss to India in the first ODI of the three-match series that concluded on Wednesday night. Pietersen publicly expressed his disappointment with their attitude after England was clean-swept 0-3 in the ODI series.
“I’m amazed that England did not have ONE team practice session since losing the 1st ODI and losing the T20 series. How is this possible?” Pietersen posted on X.
According to Ravi Shastri on commentary, England had one training session throughout the entire white-ball tour of India comprising five T20Is and three ODIs.
The T20I series also went England’s way by a score of 1-4.
“I think Joe Root was the only person to have netted this series, post Nagpur (ODI). There is not one human being on this planet who can sincerely say that they would improve without practicing whilst getting beaten. There also cannot be one player in that England side who could walk onto the plane leaving India and say that they did everything they could do to try help England win,” Pietersen wrote.
“And for that, I’m actually incredibly sad that tonight. Losing is fine if you do your best in trying to improve everyday, and if England did not train during this series, then they did not try. That is heartbreaking for any England fan!” he concluded.
Reports say that the English side had conduct a couple of training sessions prior to the onset of the tour in India last month which commenced with the first T20 in Kolkata. There were also training sessions before the second T20I in Chennai and the third T20I in Rajkot.
Nothing, however, was scheduled for training for the fourth T20I and the fifth T20I.
“Well, I’m not sure that’s quite true. We had a reasonably long tour, a few long travel days. There have been a couple of training misses, but we’ve certainly done plenty of training throughout the tour,” said Buttler, responding to Shastri’s claim.
“We obviously try and create a really good environment, but don’t mistake that for a lazy environment or a lack of effort. The guys are desperate to perform and do well and improve,” he further added.
