\u201cI want to apologise to my team-mates, the fans and the ECB for putting them in a tricky situation,\u201d said Brook, who will lead England in next month\u2019s T20 World Cup in India and Sri Lanka.<\/p>\n
\u201cIt will never happen again. I\u2019m extremely sorry.\u201d<\/p>\n
Controversy dogged England\u2019s Ashes series, with allegations of poor preparations, muddled team selection and a \u201cdrinking culture\u201d in the England camp.<\/p>\n
England players were photographed spending hours in bars during a mid-series beach resort break, with a video of an apparently drunk Ben Duckett circulating on social media.<\/p>\n
The three-match ODI series in Sri Lanka will be followed by three Twenty20 internationals, England\u2019s final warm-ups before the T20 World Cup begins on February 7.<\/p>\n
Brook said the series would be a timely litmus test for his side, who have been searching for rhythm and results.<\/p>\n
\u201cIt\u2019s important to get used to the conditions, the climate and the heat,\u201d Brook said. \u201cWe are looking forward to a competitive series.\u201d<\/p>\n
England\u2019s white-ball fortunes have nosedived since their forgettable 50-over World Cup campaign in India in 2023 where, as defending champions, they failed to make the semi-finals.<\/p>\n
Since then, they have lost six of their last seven bilateral series and endured a Champions Trophy to forget, bowing out after losing all three group games.<\/p>\n
\u201cWe would like to be a little more consistent, absorb pressure and stay in the game for longer periods,\u201d Brook said.<\/p>\n
\u201cYes, we\u2019ve lost a few series, but I feel we\u2019re heading in the right direction\u201d.<\/p>\n
Sri Lanka are wrestling with selection issues ahead of co-hosting the World Cup.<\/p>\n
Charith Asalanka was removed as T20 captain late last year but continues to lead the 50-over side.<\/p>\n
Injury-prone strike bowler Dushmantha Chameera has been rested for this series, while there remains uncertainty over the availability of leg-spinner Wanindu Hasaranga.<\/p>\n
\u201cI would have liked to have both in the team,\u201d Asalanka said.<\/p>\n
\u201cBut we have to look at the bigger picture, which is the World Cup. We haven\u2019t made a final call on Hasaranga yet.\u201d<\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"\u201cI want to apologise to my team-mates, the fans and the ECB for putting them in a tricky…\n","protected":false},"author":2,"featured_media":244666,"comment_status":"","ping_status":"","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"footnotes":""},"categories":[2],"tags":[143207,5811,74,58454,9218,143209,65968,13381,1634,19631,71,9859,671,20866,296,21080,91994,48016,117,111,43,139,99386,5006,69,16552,9979,4468,143208,102,80],"class_list":["post-244665","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","has-post-thumbnail","category-new-zealand","tag-69k","tag-admitted","tag-after","tag-altercation","tag-before","tag-bouncer","tag-brook","tag-captain","tag-england","tag-fined","tag-from","tag-harry","tag-incident","tag-insisted","tag-into","tag-ive","tag-learnt","tag-mistakes","tag-new","tag-new-zealand","tag-news","tag-newzealand","tag-nightclub","tag-not","tag-nz","tag-odi","tag-right","tag-thing","tag-whiteball","tag-with","tag-zealand"],"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/nz\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/244665","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/nz\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/nz\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/nz\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/users\/2"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/nz\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/comments?post=244665"}],"version-history":[{"count":0,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/nz\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/244665\/revisions"}],"wp:featuredmedia":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/nz\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media\/244666"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/nz\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=244665"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/nz\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=244665"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/nz\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=244665"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}