England cricket team hit for six by press

London, March 28: The England cricket team was savaged by Britain`s newspapers on Saturday following their humiliating eight-wicket defeat to the West Indies.

The national press laid into England after they were dismissed for 117 in 41.3 overs in the third One-day International at Kensington Oval in Bridgetown, Barbados, leaving them 2-1 down in the series with two left to play. The defeat came after deposed England captain Kevin Pietersen complained that he was fed up of losing and felt like fleeing back home. A picture of the star batsman watching himself get caught out for three runs featured in most of the dailies. “If Kevin Pietersen was at the end of his tether and ready to go home before the match, his colleagues must have felt the same way at the end of a brutal defeat,” Richard Hobson said in The Times.Mike Selvey, writing in The Guardian, said: “Sometimes England have the capacity to pluck from the conjurer`s hat a performance of such staggering ineptitude that for those who are forced to watch it is hard to know whether to laugh or cry.” “They plumbed the sort of depths that would make the Mariana Trench seem a puddle by comparison.” The Daily Mirror`s Dean Wilson said: “For too long England have bungled their way around the world. Enough should be enough.” “In Barbados they offered a careless, insipid and embarrassing excuse for an innings at the most crucial stage of a series tied 1-1. It was as if they didn`t care.” “They gave up their prized wickets with reckless shots that they simply didn`t have the skill to pull off. It was a total rejection of any team philosophy, it was a total rejection of Andrew Strauss as a captain and it was a total rejection of Andy Flower as a coach.” Paul Newman, writing in the Daily Mail, said England were “shocking in their ineptitude”. “There were no signs of a cohesive strategy. No signs of a clear-headed batting plan,” he wrote. “This latest catastrophe was on a true blameless pitch against good but hardly devastating bowling. It really is not good enough.” The tour has been “far worse than even the most pessimistic of predictions.” Gideon Brooks in the Daily Express agreed that the Caribbean trip “has gone from bad to worse and shows no sign of stopping.” “A benchmark of ineptitude was set that could take some shifting.” John Etheridge in The Sun said England`s “pathetic, shocking performance” in Bridgetown summed up a “miserable tour”. Bureau Report