West Indies v England: Alastair Cook urges tourists to ‘adapt better’ to full ‘huge potential’ after ODI defeat

Alastair Cook has questioned the mentality of this England team after a sobering defeat to the West Indies in their ODI series opener.

“England’s batting in general across all three formats – on belting wickets – is absolutely brilliant, you can’t stop them scoring in all three formats,” he said on TNT Sports’ coverage.

“When it becomes tougher, and you’ve got to find a different way to adapt, I’m not sure at the minute that this group of players are good enough – take Joe Root aside out of it – he’s a class above everyone else in terms of adjusting to situations.

“Everyone else needs to find a way to adapt better.”

Looking more specifically at this white-ball side, Cook stressed that a warm-up match in these conditions would have been hugely beneficial for this young team.

“This isn’t the same Test side. They had an opportunity to play a warm-up game and I think we’ve got to look at that as an England team,” he explained.

“This is a young and inexperienced team. It’s different under an Eoin Morgan side a few years ago, where everyone knew their roles.

“You can look at excuses like they’re an inexperienced side, and there’s huge potential in all of them, but you’ve got to start winning games of cricket.”

Cook highlighted the importance of getting the balance right as soon as possible, with the ICC Champions Trophy on the horizon in February.

He continued: “You’ve got to build something sooner rather than later, otherwise the ICC Champions Trophy comes and goes.

“There’s so much talent in this England white-ball set-up in T20 and one day. They’ve just got to find something to grab hold of and push in the right direction to start winning games of cricket.”