Flower not afraid to make changes

Andy Flower
12 April 2012

Andy Flower will be prepared to change England's losing team to arrest the world Test number one's fall from grace in the Middle East.

The England coach has called on the tourists to show skill and courage, and prove they can after all conquer the demons of spinning Asian pitches - starting by avoiding a series whitewash against Pakistan in Dubai next week.

"We expect to learn and learn quickly - and that is a big part of our job, of my job," said Flower, who spoke of England's bowling and first-innings competence but could only lament what followed.

He added: "I thought in the first innings some of our batsmen did an excellent job.

"(Jonathan) Trott and (Alastair) Cook were outstanding in that partnership of 145. (Stuart) Broad was outstanding; he played an aggressive, courageous knock to give us the lead - that was a match-turning performance from him both with ball and bat.

"But yes, (there were) familiar mistakes. We need our batsmen to learn - very obviously."

Flower has found himself delivering an all-too-familiar refrain so far this winter, picking over England defeats - against India in limited-overs cricket and now after losing the first two Tests against Pakistan here to concede this three-match series in under seven days.

There was inevitably more of the same as he was called to account for the hapless batting which resulted in England's lowest ever Test total against Pakistan, and another embarrassing early finish for the second successive match.

In difficult conditions, tailor-made for the talents of Pakistan's spin bowlers, England's hopes of making a relatively modest target of 145 to level the series foundered as they were all out for 72.

A spectacular sequence of single-figure dismissals dominated the scorebook as England were undone in less than 40 overs, and two-and-a-half hours, when it had seemed they began with a better than even chance of victory.

Create a FREE account to continue reading

eros

Registration is a free and easy way to support our journalism.

Join our community where you can: comment on stories; sign up to newsletters; enter competitions and access content on our app.

Your email address

Must be at least 6 characters, include an upper and lower case character and a number

You must be at least 18 years old to create an account

* Required fields

Already have an account? SIGN IN

By clicking Create Account you confirm that your data has been entered correctly and you have read and agree to our Terms of use , Cookie policy and Privacy policy .

This site is protected by reCAPTCHA and the Google Privacy Policy and Terms of Service apply.

Thank you for registering

Please refresh the page or navigate to another page on the site to be automatically logged in