Geoffery Boycott said England did not have quality reserve players to make up for their regular cricket team members and might have to exit early from the Champions Trophy in India.
LONDON: Geoffery Boycott said England did not have quality reserve players to make up for their regular cricket team members and might have to exit early from the Champions Trophy in India.
England, who are without their key players Marcus Trescothick, Michael Vaughan, Ashley Giles and Simon Jones, are in the same group as world champions Australia and India.
"We don't have the quality reserves to shore up the better players being injured. The reserves do the best they can but it does lessen the team's quality when you have too many fill-in players," Boycott said.
England reached the Champions Trophy final in 2004 at home but have won only 16 of their 43 ODIs after that. They were defeated 5-0 by Sri Lanka in a recent series at home.
"They're in poor shape. Their one-day performances fluctuate from pretty poor to ordinary and then occasionally they surprise you with a good performance," he was quoted as saying by 'BBC Sport'.
"Quite frankly, I'd be surprised if England do well here," he said.
The former captain said freshers like Jamie Dalrymple and Michael Yardy could not be long term answers for their key players. "There is some exasperation for the hierarchy that they can never get the right people on the field.
"We're without so many good cricketers and people are being moved around to fill gaps. We don't know if England are a poor one-day side or quite a good one when all the players are fit," he said.
"If we've got everybody fit, particularly Vaughan for his captaincy, we might be a lot better and be able to surprise ourselves that we're quite a decent one-day side," he added.
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