Sydney, March 14 (IANS): Former captain Paul Collingwood on Saturday said the England cricket team always learned lessons the hard way.

In a column written for the International Cricket Council (ICC) website, the former all-rounder wrote, “The devastating thing is that it’s another four years until the next World Cup. We keep coming out of these tournaments saying we’ve learnt lessons but it really is the time to learn them. We always find out the hard way.”

Collingwood said that there is a massive difference between England and other heavyweight teams who were very much at the forefront during the World Cup. He added England need a mental break now and think outside of cricket for sometime to come out fresh and steady.

“The frightening thing is that if they’d pushed teams close in the defeats, people would have accepted that but there’s been such a huge gap between the best teams and England. They will need a mental break now," said Collingwood.

"They need to get away from the game, away from thinking cricket 24 hours a day and the anxiety of thinking about it all and really try to recharge as quickly as possible for a tour to the West Indies that everyone will have a close eye on after what’s happened over the last few weeks.”

Collingwood led England to victory in the 2010 World Twenty20 in the West Indies.

“It’s a massive year for England. New Zealand will be tough in the Test matches early in the season with the way they swing the ball and have good batsmen and then it’s the Ashes,” he wrote.

Collingwood, now a part of the Scotland coaching staff, said that it was disappointing not to make the quarter-finals.

“They’ll move on but it’s just so disappointing that we’re not in the quarter-finals. But they will understand they haven’t performed and I thought they had the most skilful squad that we’ve gone into a World Cup with.”