England’s women cricketers are refusing to be interviewed by BBC pundit and World Cup winner Alex Hartley after she hit out at their fitness.

Hartley, who won the World Cup in 2017, believes she has been “hung out to dry” after Sophie Ecclestone refused to be interviewed by her.

In the wake of England’s dismal T20 World Cup exit in October, Hartley said some members of the side were not up to the required fitness standards. England’s women dropped five catches in their first exit at the group stage for 14 years, and the BBC Test Match Special commentator said members of the squad were “letting the team down”.

England captain Heather Knight and head coach Jon Lewis have repeatedly denied that fitness led to their early World Cup departure. Since making those comments three months ago, some of the England team have refused to speak to Hartley.

Ecclestone, a former country and club team-mate of Hartley’s, refused to do an interview with the commentator before the first T20 of the Women’s Ashes series in Sydney, which England lost by 57 runs.

“I’ve been hung out to dry by the England team: none of them will talk to me on the boundary edge,” Hartley claimed on the Test Match Special podcast.

“The reason I said England aren’t as fit as Australia is because I want them to compete, I want them to be better and I want them to win Ashes and World Cups. But I’ve been given the cold shoulder ever since, not by everyone, but some individuals and coaches.

“Clearly I have upset them. They think I am wrong, which is fine. I’m entitled to my opinions and they are entitled to theirs.”

Hartley has stood by her claims as England have committed many of the same fielding mistakes over the course of the four Women’s Ashes defeats.

“It’s my job to say if I see something that needs to be better, and I did, but the way that I’ve been treated since, I think, is totally unfair,” she added after saying that England have struggled to match Australia’s “athleticism” in the current series.

England have been contacted for comment.

Elite players should learn to accept criticism

Criticism is part of professional sport. A fully professional outfit such as this England team – they are paid to play cricket and receive the same match fees as their male counterparts – should be expected to be held accountable. Dealing with the subsequent criticism is simply something they have to learn.

Alex Hartley’s comments may have offended some of her former team-mates, but holding a grudge significant enough to re-emerge more than three months later will not help the team.

Hartley is not alone in her views of the players’ fitness. Many, including former player and broadcaster Izzy Westbury have echoed her sentiments. It is also not a taboo subject, and players in the men’s game have been publicly called out, by the current women’s head coach Jon Lewis no less, for their lack of athleticism.

As the England men’s bowling coach for the 2021-22 Ashes, Lewis openly criticised Ollie Robinson’s fitness, saying: “If he’s going to perform consistently over a long period of time at this level, he will need to be a fitter bowler, 100 per cent. We’ve had those conversations, we’ve been pretty frank with him. And now it’s up to him to go and do the work.” But Lewis has shied away from similar discussions in his current role.

Leaving any issues over fitness aside, refusing to be interviewed by someone working for an outlet which has paid for broadcast rights is misguided. Dealing with the media is part of professional sport and, without the sale of broadcast rights, people would not be paid to play sports.

Further to this, England have consistently failed to learn from any of their previous failures and, while they might have been addressed behind closed doors, the same problems have kept emerging.

Since the 2023 Ashes, when the gap between England and Australia looked like it was closing, Heather Knight’s side have endured a string of high-profile failures.

The most recent T20 World Cup might have been the most widely publicised, but just over a year ago they lost a Test match in India by a huge 347 runs and collapsed against South Africa in a T20 World Cup semi-final at the start of 2023.

Instead of acknowledging the mistakes – dropped catches, misfields, batting collapses – Knight said after the opening ODI defeat against Australia she was “pleased with the performance” while her counterpart Alyssa Healy immediately turned attention to areas for improvement. In the following match Australia came back from the brink of defeat, while England made the same errors yet again.

Under Brendon McCullum and Ben Stokes, England’s men are trained in shutting out the noise, while Jonny Bairstow would use criticism as fuel to perform on the field, often producing his best performances. The women’s team can learn from that.

Perhaps the environment is too comfortable. The squad should hold themselves to higher standards – if they did, they might be less sensitive to such criticism.