We can do a South Korea and get to semis: Swann

Spinner Graeme Swann reckons that the current England team would not be able to make it to the top honours of the upcoming Champions Trophy, and the maximum that they hope to achieve is to reach the semi-finals.

England team has been looking out of sorts after the historic Ashes win, and in the absence of experienced players like Andrew Flintoff and Kevin Pietersen, they have not been able to prevent a 6-0 drubbing in the seven match ODI series, with one game still left to be played at Chester-le-Street. 

"We can do a South Korea and maybe get to the semi-finals. I am a great believer in that it is good to be the underdog and the underdog can have its day. We're going to go and give it a crack," News of the World quoted Swann, as saying.

Swann also said that England have failed to deliver the runs needed to put the Aussies under pressure, and believes that they have not been playing good cricket.

"It is pretty obvious to anyone who is watching we are not making enough runs. Having said that, we set them 300 on Tuesday and they chased it down. We are not playing good one-day cricket and we haven't done that for a few years,"

The 30-year-old further said that England's display in the ODI series has taken the some charm off their 2-1 Ashes, and demanded that the team should have been provided proper rest after such a significant tournament.

"In an ideal world we would have had a week off after the Ashes to let it all sink in. The trip to Ireland was a bit hectic, but that is the way of life for cricketers nowadays," he added.