England spinner Jack Leach has insisted the side's recent series defeat to the West Indies was "a positive one", echoing comments made by captain Joe Root.
Leach has stated that "some real good stuff happened" in the Caribbean, despite England losing the series in humiliating fashion with a ten-wicket defeat in Grenada. Speaking to BBC Radio Bristol, he said: "We had a good trip out there, we all felt like it was a positive one.
"Although we lost the series and on the outside things can be looking quite negative, I think we feel on the inside some real good stuff happened." And Leach's comments echo those made by Root in the immediate aftermath of the loss.
"I feel like the group are very much behind me, we're doing a lot of really good things and we just need to turn that into results now," Root said. "I think, immediately, there is the frustration with how it's finished because throughout this series I think we've played some really good cricket.
"I think we've shown what we're capable of as a group. I think we've grown over the first two games as a batting group, we've shown big strides in that department and shown what we are capable of and then yesterday's really let us down.
"It's an important day within the series, and we just didn't stand up to it well enough. Then unfortunately you find us in this position where we've ended up losing out on the series, in which we've played so much brilliant cricket."
However, former England captain Sir Alastair Cook recently criticised Root's "positive chat", suggesting it is "slightly deluded". In his Sunday Times column, Cook wrote: "I am a bit bored with all the positive chat because I don't think it was a sense of reality in that changing room.
"All the noise was that 'we've turned a corner and our attitude is brilliant'. Some of that stuff should have been a given. I don't know what's being said behind closed doors but I'm struggling to see as many positives as they are. And is that slightly deluded? The word's been put out there.
“Some of the stuff coming out [from England], with all this positivity. We've just lost again, we've won one in 17. That's the reality, and it hurts. But if you own that, as a side, that could be a step forward."
