Cook: Players didn’t let Ashley Giles down over head coach role

Alastair Cook, England’s captain, has absolved his fellow players of blame for Ashley Giles’ failure to become the new head coach. Giles was overlooked in favour of Peter Moores, having originally seemed favourite when Andy Flower quit in the wake of the winter’s 5-0 Ashes whitewash.

However, Giles then oversaw 10 England defeats in 14 one-day international and Twenty20 matches in Australia and West Indies, followed by an early exit from the World Twenty20, culminating in a humiliating loss to the Netherlands.

“I don’t think you can say the players let Ashley down,” said Cook. “We all got behind him, liked his methods, worked hard and enjoyed working under him. He’s a very good coach.

“I don’t think those results had an impact on picking Moores as coach. Peter has 16 years of coaching experience and has been successful and he [Paul Downton, the managing director of England cricket] thought it would be wrong to ignore that.”

Giles was said by Downton to be “extremely disappointed” at missing out on the top job and Cook said: “I’m gutted for him; he is a very good guy.”