"Don't understand how they are so low on that...": Ex-head coach Matthew Mott on England's "less attention" to WTC

Before England's three-match series against New Zealand, Test captain Ben Stokes voiced his opinion about the "utterly confusing" WTC and stated his team believes in taking things "game by game, series by series."

According to the remark made by England's Test captain, their approach does not align with the long-term nature of the WTC.

England is already out of the race to the WTC final and has failed to qualify for the same once in the previous two editions of the tournament.

Considering England's ambition of keeping Test cricket healthy, Mott admitted he is "mystified" by the minimal amount of attention the red-ball team gives to WTC.

"I don't understand how they are so low on that. I think the World Test Championship is a great idea. Some people are a little bit mystified about how it all comes together. You can win a Test match and then drop a couple of places, [and] then there's the over rates thing," Mott said as quoted from The Sydney Morning Herald.

"The Australians got a lot of joy out of winning it, but where would they regard that as opposed to winning the Ashes?" he added.

Mott went on to reflect on the moment his tenure started to fall apart and traced its beginning back to their abysmal ODI World Cup title defence campaign in India last year.

England failed to qualify for the knockout stage, and it was evident after a couple of defeats they suffered in the beginning phase. They eventually finished their campaign in the seventh position with a mere six points.

Mott admitted that his tenure never recovered after the tournament and said, "India was really tough. It was quite obvious we were in a big hole. Usually, when you have a bad World Cup, you're bundled out pretty quickly. But the format [of that tournament meant] we were there, and it just didn't get any better, and we just kept getting flogged from all quarters," he said.

"If we talk about the hardest things about the job, a lot of the time our lead-in to World Cups was not ideal. That was our biggest challenge - we had tired players starting tournaments, and that's not what you want. You want players champing at the bit to play, rather than having to try to manage them," he added. (ANI)