Graeme Swann damns England's World Cup 2015 hopes

Bristol Graeme Swann believes England do not have a cat in hells chance of winning next years World Cup unless they add more firepower to their toporder batting Sunday saw England captain Alastair Cook suggest that the teams prospects for the tournament in Australia and New Zealand were very goodGraeme SwannBut former England offspinner Swann was far more pessimistic Swann speaking to BBC Radios Test Match Special as rain washed out the first oneday international against world champions India in Bristol without a ball bowled on Monday insisted England were so far behind other teams in their approach to the limitedovers gameIf he Cook truly believes England can win this World CupI am the greatest patriot there is but we do not have a cat in hells chance Swann said Opening batsman Cooks position in the oneday side has been called into question with many pundits arguing his orthodox approach while wellsuited to Test cricket has increasingly little place in a oneday context where big hitters dominate at the top of the orderI love Cooky totally but I do not think he should be bothering playing oneday cricket any more said the 35yearold Swann who played 60 Tests and 79 ODIs for England before retiring during the teams 50 Ashes thrashing in AustraliaLet young people play who want to smash it everywhere he added as he called for promising batsmen James Vince and Jason Roy to be added to the squad If the rain had held off in Bristol England would have given an ODI debut to dynamic Nottinghamshire opener Alex Hales The 25yearold scored Englands first Twenty20 international century when he made 116 not out from 64 balls against Sri Lanka at the World Twenty20 in MarchSame mistakeSwann played in the last World Cup in 2011 where England bowed out with a 10wicket defeat by Sri Lanka in the quarterfinals in Colombo Recalling that match Swann said I remember Jonathan Trott getting 86 in Colombo Wed batted to our batting plan perfectly got 229 They Sri Lanka knocked it off in 40 overs Thats how we always played it Its crazyThe batsmen who wont win you World Cups in Australia will probably do very well in England If youre not getting over 300 now on good wickets youre not going to win games Michael Vaughan Englands captain at the 2007 World Cup added Weve made the same mistake now as we did in my time five to six years ago and in the 1990s Were picking oneday squads on Test formEnglish cricket has always had Test cricket at the pinnacle but the games are so different England are looking too much at these new white balls The other teams have gone power at the top and all the way through India have got power strikers all the way down South Africa Australia are all exactly the sameIts a completely different era because of Twenty20 England have yet to win the World Cup in nearly 40 years of trying since staging the first of the tournaments 10 editions in 1975 The last of their three losing appearances in the final was more than 20 years ago when the tournament was last staged in Australia and New Zealand in 1992England and India are due to play the second oneday international of their fivematch series in Cardiff on Wednesday Swann added Ive just seen that the series sponsors are Royal London insurance The tagline on their adverts is were so yesterday and they couldnt sum up the England one day team any more in my view