In the miserable hours following England cricket's most humiliating day, their best batsman posted a video to his 2.2 million Twitter followers of him plunging into an idyllic swimming pool at a plush resort in the Caribbean.

Bitchy? You bet. Kevin Pietersen's bitterness at being left out of the England World Cup squad seems to leap from the screen as nimbly as his swan dive into the clear water at Royal Westmoreland, described as a "luxury golf, beach and spa resort" and "Barbados living at its very finest".

By posting the video, which is captioned "Sun, pool, sea, sand … loving @RoyalWM this week! #Barbados", Pietersen is, with eight seconds of smartphone footage, giving a flagrant "up yours" to all those who orchestrated and supported his axing.

Perhaps it is justified. For, however mischievous, destabilising or downright unpleasant Pietersen's presence in the national set-up might have been, the result could not have been worse than the mind-boggling eight-wicket loss to New Zealand, a spectacular annihilation of Eoin Morgan's beleaguered side, members of which must surely be wishing they were, say, in Barbados rather than caught in the throes of a World Cup disaster.

Pietersen's cheap shot was probably expected by some, but the English media's standard vitriolic reaction to this latest English sporting misadventure was a certainty.

"England cricketing disasters can come with the bar set very high, but even by their lofty standards this was par excellence," Mike Selvey wrote in The Guardian.

"The defeat, at the hands of an urgent New Zealand superbly led by Brendon McCullum, went beyond the realms of simple humiliation … and entered that of fantasy, a dream, a nightmare."

Paul Newman, in the Daily Mail, wrote: "Okay, at times like this it can be easy to resort to hyperbole and think of the latest woeful capitulation as being the worst you have seen. But can anything have been as bad as this for England? Ever?"

Former England captain Michael Vaughan called the team "a shambles", former spin bowler Graeme Swann said "England will want the world to open and swallow them up tonight" and ex-all-rounder Derek Pringle said "England's shirts have these dark stains like the players have been pelted in the stocks, a response some fans no doubt feel would be apt".

BBC correspondent, Jonathan Agnew described the performance as "almost too bad to put into words".

"To be bowled out for 123 and then see that chased down in 12.2 overs is extremely chastening for Eoin Morgan's side," Agnew said. "They will feel utterly embarrassed."

And, Vaughan summed up much of the sentiment around the absence of Pietersen. "The ECB hate anyone talking about the Pietersen factor and have successfully managed to ensure the mainstream media do not bring him up," he wrote in The Telegraph. "But there is no doubt he should be batting in this team."