"KP took England a step backwards"

by S M January 11, 2009

"Yes, I think so. It didn't look like it was a terrible situation. It does take a while to work with someone. I mean you're not just going to come on board as a captain and work smoothly and fit in exactly the way he wants," said the former Australian skipper, Steve Waugh.

"There are probably six to 12 months at least, so there is that certain period of time where there's a bit of adjustment needed. You've got to get used to the way people operate. So I think they really didn't probably give each other enough of an opportunity to do that," Waugh said.

"In the end both people suffer. Kevin had to resign from the captaincy and Peter Moores has lost a coaching job, so no one's a winner and it really puts England one step further back than they'd like to be," he said.

"They're pretty hard-nosed and thick-skinned and they're used to a lot of these distractions around the team. They'll get on with playing cricket and they'll embrace him as a great, great batsman, which he is and I think it will be pretty soon forgotten and they'll just get on with the job."

"We all move on and in time he may well get another opportunity because a lot of people thought he was very good at what he did. He certainly gave spark to the job and he got a lot of people talking about Test match cricket in England, so there were certainly more things in his favour than against him," he said.