“It’s time for us to move on and also for Alastair to refocus”
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England head coach Peter Moores has announced that the national team have to move on from Alastair Cook’s tenure as head coach.
Cook was not only sacked and replaced by Eoin Morgan as ODI captain, but also left out of England’s World Cup squad as well.
“We’d got to a position where it felt like it was the right thing to do. It was a braver decision to change it,” Moores said. “I’m comfortable with that and I think we’ve got the right people on the plane. We’ve got to go out there now and we’ve got to perform. We’ve got to perform well as a team.
“It’s a tough one on Alastair. I think we can look back and say Alastair had every chance to get on the plane there, and he was committed to that personal ambition and to the team’s.
“All that work is not lost. We’ve got a very good set of players an Alastair understands that.
“We’ve got to go there with a strong focus. We go there with a strong ambition to go and win a World Cup.
“It’s time for us to move on and also for Alastair to refocus. He’s got lots of Test match cricket to come up this year – he’s got a huge role to play in that – so he’s got a clear focus over the next few months to get ready, to prepare, both for himself and for us as a team.”
While Morgan himself has struggled with the bat as well, Moores is confident all that will change once he is given the chance to lead by example.
“He will know that form can vary – he will be desperately keen to make sure that he fires as captain,” Moores said. “Form is always a tough one for a player. He a had fantastic time on his last trip to Australia.
“He’s a fantastic one-day player, he has got a one-day mindset in how he goes about his cricket and I think he’ll certainly be up for the challenge.
“He’s been very involved in all the decisions anyway because Alastair’s close to Eoin and he’s got a very good cricket brain.
“It’ll be exciting to work with Eoin, I think he’ll bring a lot to the team. (He’s a) very straight forward captain, which will be a good thing for us, and has a very strong desire to go out there and show how well how he can play.”