Trevor Bayliss admits England's Test side is suffering from lack of competition for places, a dearth of top-order specialists and a "muddled" mindset.
The England coach was forthright as he picked over back-to-back defeats to the West Indies, by crushing margins of 381 runs in Barbados and 10 wickets in Antigua, diagnosing some fundamental issues with the available batting options.
England have been rolled far too easily in the Caribbean with scores of 77, 246, 187 and 132 showing up flaws in temperament and technique.
Speaking in the dressing room after the three-day loss at the Sir Vivian Richards Stadium, Bayliss invited the players to go away and offer their own answers before the third Test in St Lucia which starts on Saturday, but it was clear he does not anticipate any easy fix.
In particular, England's batting has the tendency to look lop-sided with Jonny Bairstow, Ben Stokes, Jos Buttler, Moeen Ali, Sam Curran and Ben Foakes all most suitable as stroke makers in the lower middle order.
The top three suffers from a chronic lack of options, with a revolving-door policy among openers in recent years and Bairstow the latest square peg wedged into the round hole at first wicket down.
"One of the difficult things is we've got six guys that are probably suited to batting six or seven and we're trying to fit them into the team," Bayliss said.
"Without a lot of pressure coming up from behind then those guys are our best players, so we've got to try and fit them into the team."
"It would be great if somebody was pushing them from behind and giving them a little extra motivation to score runs and stay in the team."
Events of the past fortnight have punctured the optimism created in Sri Lanka before Christmas, where a 3-0 whitewash took the Test side's record to eight wins out of nine.
Explaining the decision to send the group away for a period of introspection rather than a stint of so-called 'naughty boy nets', Bayliss said: "We posed some questions to them in the changing room, giving them 24 hours to have a think about it, and then have an informal chat.
"It won't be me standing up in front of them like a school teacher. There are some deep conversations going on."
