Cricket: England could be a success

Not content with ushering New Zealand into the semifinals of the Champions Trophy, coach John Bracewell has dispensed advice to his English counterparts as to how they might improve their one-day record.

England, playing the West Indies overnight, lost their opening two matches of the Trophy to India and Australia and have lost 19 of their past 24 ODIs against test-playing nations.

Bracewell told The Guardian that England was not a successful one-day side because, in financial terms, they didn't need to be.

"They are just about the only country that actually survives on test cricket," he said.

Bracewell was a successful one-day coach at unfashionable county side Gloucestershire due, he said, to the fact they took it seriously.

"We were a side which probably didn't have the skills or the pitches to win the [four day] championship, but in order to give them purpose and have an identity we grabbed hold of one-day cricket and stole a march on everybody."

Despite his misgivings Bracewell said England had a chance of winning the World Cup next year, as long as their few key players such as Andrew Flintoff fired.

"If they don't, then they haven't really got a price."