ICC World Cup 2015: 5 reasons for England's early exit from the World Cup

England were knocked out of the World Cup yesterday by Bangladesh, and it would be totally disrepectful to the ‘Tigers’ to call this an upset. It was one hell of a contest though; the game swung more times than Anderson’s deliveries did throughout the World Cup.It is sad to see England go out of the tournament so early, but it wasn’t entirely unexpected. The English should have seen it coming more than anybody else. And this trend will continue until England stops chasing its heroes off and starts giving more attention to things other than the Ashes.Let us take a look at where England went wrong in their World Cup campaign:

#1 Pre-tournament selection blunders

England’s World Cup preparation started way before anybody else started theirs. They sacked Kevin Pietersen in February 2014 because Paul Downton, the ECB managing director believed, in his own words, "The time is right to rebuild not only the team but also the team ethic."

I don’t know about ethic, but one cannot think of rebuilding the team by forcing your best player of the era, perhaps of all time, into retirement. Not only were we deprived of watching KP at the international level, but England also failed to qualify for the knockout stages in the World Cup.

The preparation ended with sacking the England captain just before the tournament. You don’t change the captain just before a huge event such as the World Cup, you just don’t! Even if it is the out-of-form-can’t-get-bat-to-the-ball Alastair Cook. Should he have been sacked? Yes, but six months earlier. A captain is not just any other player in the team. The whole team revolves around him. The team is used to his decisions and his style of captaincy.

Above all, he knows the pressure of captaincy. You cannot just pick your best ODI player and make him captain. Ask a certain Sachin Tendulkar. Playing as an individual contributor and playing as a captain are two completely different things. Now, that the World Cup has come to an end for them, they would wonder if Cook had done any worse than Ballance did who replaced him in the squad.