England captain Alastair Cook has admitted that most of his side severely underperformed during the 5-0 Ashes whitewash at the hands of Australia.
The 29-year-old believes that Stuart Broad and Ben Stokes were the only players who can be proud of their displays in the Tests Down Under, which finished with a 281-run loss in Sydney on Sunday.
Although he has acknowledged that the tourists were well below par, Cook has heaped praise on the entire Aussie side, while claiming that Michael Clarke's bowling attack was the best that he has faced.
"We weren't good enough," he told Sky Sports News. "It's probably only Broady and Stokesy that have performed close to what they are capable of in this series.
"You need to give a lot of credit to Michael Clarke and his team. They thoroughly deserved to win 5-0. If this was a boxing match it would have been called off long before today. We tried our hardest but haven't been good enough.
"People aren't scoring runs and there are a lot of places up for grabs. Having said that, that was the best bowling attack that I've faced."
Broad took 21 wickets at an average of 27.52 during the series, while Stokes claimed 15 dismissals at 32.80 and scored 279 runs at an average of 34.87. The latter also hit England's only century of the tour.
Joe Fish
