England need a world-class T20 tourment: Atherton

Adelaide, March 10: Former England captain Michael Atherton on Tuesday felt that his country's cricket needs a "world-class Twenty20 tourment", to make them a strong contender in the limited-overs format.

England on Monday slumped to fourth loss in five matches in Pool A of the ongoing World Cup. They lost to Bangladesh by 15 runs in a crcial clash. They earlier had suffered taming defeats against Australia, New zealand and Sri Lanka.

He said part of the development of the next generation is a willingness to promote young players to intertiol cricket faster than England have in the past.

"Twenty20 is the key to developing the next batch of 50-over cricketers because most countries are playing at that tempo now, albeit stretched over a longer period of time. Picking the right kind of players is like picking a good dividend-paying stock," Atherton wrote in a column as reported by cricket.com.au.

"Choose right and stay faithful and they will provide compound interest for years to come. Moeen Ali, (Alex) Hales, (Jos) Buttler, Sam Billings, Joe Root, Ben Stokes and Chris Jordan, among others, provide a nucleus of a one-day squad to move forward with."

Atherton felt England's mindset when it comes to limited overs cricket is years behind the rest of the world which resulted in the failure to make the semifils of the past six World Cups. IANS