Tight schedule root of England's problems

Things have gone really pear-shaped for England, haven't they? Quite frankly, I wouldn't put my money on this team to win the World Cup. That may seem slightly harsh to some, but look where England are just at present.

Less than a month ago, they were on top of the world. Ashes winners, and very handsomely too, playing superbly as a team, and seemingly able to beat anybody. Now, six of them are injured, they've only just got home but must leave for India in no time at all, mentally gutted by the one-day series whitewash in Australia, and in desperate need of some rest.

And all for what? Seven useless one-day games close on the heels of a gruelling Test series. Seriously, who gives a damn about those ODIs? Surely an Ashes victory cannot compare to the high of winning a redundant series? Of course, it's another matter that they came nowhere close to winning.

It is also quite another story that everybody ignored the entire series completely. I know plenty of pundits will tell you that it's cricket made for television. That argument sounds pretty pointless if you conduct a survey of the number of people who actually switched on the telly to watch these games. I would hardly call it a must-watch, would you? As I say, nothing can match the high of a hard fought Test win, and nothing makes for more exciting television either.

Can you blame the England players for feeling flat and completely out of sorts? Think about it: five Tests in just about seven weeks, as opposed to even two decades ago, when five Tests would probably stretch across four months. It's all just coming too quickly, with no scope for a breather whatsoever. Can you blame this team for looking like a shadow of the one that won the Ashes?

What sense does it make to expose your finest players to injury weeks before the start of the biggest tournament of the game? And I'm not even mentioning the mental stress that they have had to go through. From looking invincible, they will now look like potential losers every time they take the field. And I have put in one sentence a journey that is hell to go through.

And the reason I'm so agitated is that this should never have happened. England were fielding and batting brilliantly, hanging together perfectly as a unit, and they thoroughly deserved to win the Ashes. Except for Chris Broad, everyone else was fighting fit. At the end of the Tests, they should just have been sent home to sleep comfortably in their own beds, and catch up with their families, and take the kids to school.

Instead, six of them are now out of action, with a very real chance that the World Cup squad may not feature some of them at all. So you may have an England team in which non-entities will play a crucial role, which to me looks as though it is an irreparable blow to the team's World Cup prospects.

What is doubly agonising is that the conditions in India ought to have been perfect for England. For the first time, they have a spinner in Graeme Swann who can bowl in both Tests and ODIs, and the flat tracks of India would have suited the batsmen just fine. They aren't at their best on fast, bouncy pitches, as Perth showed recently, and Johannesburg and Mornie Morkel showed a year or so ago.

England's chief advantage during the Ashes was that they were a team of highly capable individuals, yet not reliant on one outstanding player, such as Sachin Tendulkar. Now, that has turned into a concern, given the scattered nature of the team. The one player who could have made a difference, Kevin Pietersen, is no longer the force that he was, very often getting himself out playing loose shots.

After the 6-1 dusting down in Australia, the question is: do this England team have it in them to pick themselves up? Going downhill is a process that is difficult to stop, and while I believe this England team to be of strong character, I doubt if they have the time or the strength to turn around. I wouldn't put my money on them, frankly. I'd keep it in my pocket.