After England suffered their largest ever ODI defeat (by runs) against Sri Lanka in the dead-rubber fifth and final ODI of the series, the former England skipper Nasser Hussain said it will not hurt the team who are preparing themselves for the 2019 ICC Cricket World Cup.

Before that match, England already secured the ODI series, leading it by 3-0. After Sri Lanka put a big total of 366/6 (50 overs) on the board, England went down to 132/9 (26.1 overs) before rain interrupted the game. In DLS method, Sri Lanka won their only game of the ODI series and that was too by 219 runs.

After the game, Hussain told Sky Sports, “England were awful, make no mistake. They didn’t play very well and it was just one of those days. They’ll say ‘let’s put it all to bed in one game’ and move on. I don’t think this will have any bearing on a World Cup in May, June and July in England next year. It was just a very bad day at the office.”

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Hussain believes that the present English ODI side is very matured and that’s why he feels very proud of the team. The 50-year-old claimed that the old English ODI sides were complicated, based on theories and overthinking.

Hussain added, “Previous England one-day sides have been complicated sides, full of theory and overthinking. This is not one of those sides, they will just shrug it off and make no excuses. We have got an England one-day side we can be very proud of. It was just a game too many for a side pushed too hard by playing out here at this time of year.”

“[All the changes] gave a tour already on a knife-edge, because of the scheduling and the weather and the cabin-fever the players would have been feeling, an end-of-term feel. It was almost ‘the tour’s done, the series is won, we are having a look at people’.”