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What the pundits made of England's embarrassing defeat to New Zealand

What the pundits made of England's embarrassing defeat to New Zealand

Despite planning meticulously, re-arranging Ashes tours and ditching Test cricket for eight months, England's performance so far at the Cricket World Cup has been an embarrassment.

Or so say the pundits. After losing by 111 runs to Australia in their opening game, the team were the taken apart in an eight wicket loss to New Zealand.

Here's what the experts made of their performance...

Geoff Boycott

Former England batsman Geoff Boycott: “This was not an uncovered or grassy pitch seaming all over the place – this was a flat 270-pitch minimum and they made a right mess of it.”

Graeme Swann

Former England spinner Graeme Swann: “McCullum sensed England were a wounded animal and went for the kill.”

Michael Vaughan

Former England captain Michael Vaughan (right) called the performance “a shambles” and “abject”. “A year ago Paul Downton described Peter Moores as the ‘coach of his generation’.

But I always say international coaching is about man-management, tactics and skill. Peter is not stupid. He will know that the Scotland game and the next four matches are massive in his second tenure as coach. You don’t get long second time around.” Vaughan added: “England cannot say it was the right decision to sack Kevin Pietersen when they are playing like this.”

Ashley Giles

Moores’ predecessor as England limited-overs coach Ashley Giles: “England changing their batting line-up for the first match was a bit odd, moving James Taylor to six, [whereas] each New Zealand player knew their roles coming into the World Cup.”

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