Paul Collingwood believes that a lengthy break over Christmas was part of England's downfall during their Test series whitewash against Pakistan.
The world's best test side slumped to a 3-0 defeat in Dubai last week.
"The defeats came out of the blue in many ways and in trying to see, from the outside, what they have done differently, the only thing I can think of is that it was probably the team's longest ever break heading into the series," Collingwood told Reuters.
"Normally we'd only get three or four weeks off at the end of our summer and we didn't spend many Christmases at home.
"But this time there was a three-month break which meant they went into the series a bit cold. Especially in the first test, which did the damage because they didn't play spin very well, which meant their confidence levels were down and they never recovered."
England will try to avenge their Test loss in the first one-day international against Pakistan in Abu Dhabi today.
