That England had a dismal World Cup campaign is no longer news. Managing to win only three games out of nine, they finished seventh on the points table, just about scraping through to qualify for the 2025 Champions Trophy, the criteria for which was to finish in the top eight.

While doing a post-mortem of England’s poor performance at the World Cup following their last game against Pakistan, Nasser Hussain told Daily Mail that one of the factors behind their lacklustre outing was that the players were mentally and physically exhausted from playing in the gruelling five-match Ashes series during June-July.

“It’s hard for England because of the timing of World Cups on the back of an Ashes series,” said Hussain. “There’s so much focus on the Ashes that come the end of it, you are mentally exhausted. You look at players like Chris Woakes and Mark Wood and both were mentally and physically exhausted.

“So it’s about planning across formats. We need to give each format equal care and attention all the way through. It’s hard for England with the timing of a lot of these World Cups at the end of the [English] summer so it’s about never taking your eye off any format because if you do, sides will go past you when you think that you’re okay.”

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Hussain was criticised for this statement, with the main theme of the criticism being that it was an attempt to deflect blame for England’s poor performance onto something else.

Among those who joined in criticism was former Australian batter Damien Martyn, who took a dig at Hussain by posting this on social media: “The hits keep on rolling… Got to be someone else’s fault the World Cup display..”

He has since deleted his post, but not before it came to the attention of Hussain, who took to X (formerly Twitter) to issue a clarification for his quotes.

Hussain said that it was his respect for Martyn that made him clarify and that his comment was taken out of context. He quoted the link to the entire 47-minute discussion that took place between himself, Michael Atherton, Eoin Morgan, and Ian Ward on Sky Sports Cricket, and asked people to go through it.

“I try not to react on here but I have a lot of respect for @damienmartyn and a few others that have been taken in by an out of context quote that did the rounds probably without watching the whole Vod cast ! Have a watch and make up your own minds ! Thanks,” wrote Hussain.

I try not to react on here but I have a lot of respect for @damienmartyn and a few others that have been taken in by an out of context quote that did the rounds probably without watching the whole Vod cast ! Have a watch and make up your own minds ! Thanks https://t.co/4H5OQj9Nyw

— Nasser Hussain (@nassercricket) November 14, 2023