Cook blasts preparations

Cricket: Former England captain Alastair Cook has questioned the team’s preparations for its West Indies tour, after it crashed to a humiliating 381run defeat in the first test in Barbados on Sunday.

England came into the contest having drawn its two warmup games in the Caribbean but Cook said the twoday matches had not fully sharpened the instincts of Joe Root’s side.

‘‘It’s imperative that you then undergo proper competition . . . England did not get that. However hard they tried in the two warmup games, those fixtures added up to less of an experience than fourday firstclass cricket would have offered.’’ — Reuters