Graeme Swann believes England "do not have a cat in hell's chance" of winning next year's World Cup unless they add more firepower to their top-order batting.
Swann, speaking to BBC Radio's Test Match Special as rain washed out the first one-day international against world champions India in Bristol without a ball bowled on Monday, insisted England were "so far behind other teams" in their approach to the limited-overs game.
"If (captain Alastair Cook) truly believes England can win this World Cup...I am the greatest patriot there is but we do not have a cat in hell's chance," Swann said.
Opening batsman Cook's position in the one-day side has been called into question, with many pundits arguing his orthodox approach, while well-suited to Test cricket, has increasingly little place in a one-day context where big hitters dominate at the top of the order.
"I love Cooky totally, but I do not think he should be bothering playing one-day cricket any more," said the 35-year-old Swann, who played 60 Tests and 79 ODIs for England before retiring during the team's 5-0 Ashes thrashing in Australia.
"Let young people (play) who want to smash it everywhere."
Michael Vaughan, England's captain at the 2007 World Cup, added: "We've made the same mistake now as we did in my time, five to six years ago and in the 1990s.
"We're picking one-day squads on Test form.
"English cricket has always had Test cricket at the pinnacle, but the games are so different.
"England are looking too much at these new white balls. The other teams have gone power at the top and all the way through.
"India have got power strikers all the way down. South Africa, Australia are all exactly the same.
"It's a completely different era because of Twenty20."
England have yet to win the World Cup in nearly 40 years of trying since staging the first of the tournament's 10 editions in 1975.
The most recent of their three losing appearances in the final was more than 20 years ago when the tournament was last staged in Australia and New Zealand in 1992.
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