Ashley Giles said he didn't know whether England's humiliation at the hands of Netherlands would have a negative impact on his prospects of becoming head coach across all three formats but accepted that the performance was unacceptable from the players he hopes to lead on a full-time basis.
A 45-run defeat to an Associate team completed a winter of miserable cricket from England. Giles has been in charge for a good proportion of it with ODI and T20 series defeats in Australia followed by another 20-over reverse in the Caribbean. But being rolled by the Netherlands saw England plumb new depths. It was not what Giles wanted to take into the interview room at Lord's.
"It never helps does it, losing to Holland," he said. "We wanted to leave here after what in some ways were some positive performances with a win. It has been a difficult winter. The sun will still come up tomorrow but sometimes it feels like it won't when you have days like that at the office and it wasn't good from anyone. I'm sure the ECB know that but there is not much more we can say except that it was unacceptable and embarrassing."
Giles thought England were complacent in their pursuit of 134 - a target that should have been swallowed up after previous totals of 193, 190 and 172 in the tournament. It was not the first time this winter that England have coughed up a match in pursuit of a target very much within reach.
"Unfortunately it has been quite a common trait of ours in these games to make them look difficult and to at times lose them and you can't do that," Giles said. "You can't just pick and choose when you are up for it. You have to be up for it all the time.
"We were not necessarily worried at half time," Giles said. "The messages were the same before the game and through the game. We prepared the side in the same way, we gave the same messages, the warm-ups were the same, our intensity the same, I thought we warmed up well. We had the same meetings and talked about concentrating on the job that needed to be done and then at half time making sure guys are in the right space."
Giles said he felt the pain of such a demoralising defeat and he will now hope he is given the chance to rebuild England. One result should not prove have too detrimental an effect on his credentials but he is entitled to field let down by his players. It would be a very disappointing end to his time as England coach if he wasn't appointed full time.
"We are all in this together. Don't get me wrong, when the guys go out there, there has to be some personal responsibility there as well, but we are a team, we stick together and we have all lost that match. It should hurt those guys as much as it hurts me and I hope it does.
"I would hope they will know that is not acceptable. Those sorts of performances are not good. We are playing for our country, all of us, every time you put on an England shirt, bowl a ball, field a ball, hit a ball you have to have everything in it and we weren't today.
"It wouldn't be your ideal way to go out. I said yesterday that we would have the odd blip and they don't get much bigger than this. If there could be any bright side it was that it wasn't all on going through to the semis. You would have hoped the team would have reacted differently if it was. It was a little bit of complacency but we can't afford those sorts of performances in a year. It is just not good enough."