Tough times for Flower

Andy Flower shared the pain of all England cricket supporters as he could only sit and watch his team collapse to defeat in front of him, against Pakistan spin at the Zayed Stadium.

England were bowled out for 72 - their worst Test total against Pakistan - to record an eighth defeat from their last nine international matches, and lose this three-match series in under seven days.

No English batsman appeared remotely capable of resisting the spin of Abdur Rehman in particular, on the way to a 72-run defeat which means the tourists are in danger of a 3-0 whitewash in Dubai next week. Flower said: "Yesterday (Saturday) was tough watching for anyone who loves England cricket."

He added: "The guys played some really good cricket to get us into that position to chase a total of 145 to win a Test. It's exactly the sort of position you want to be in.

"But we weren't good enough to deal with their spinners; we weren't skilful enough and we didn't deal with the pressure well enough - and I think we have to face up to those facts."

It was all the more disappointing for Flower, because England had done so much right for much of the three days only to capitulate with victory in sight.

"Yesterday was very poor. The three days preceding that were pretty good," he said.

"We put ourselves in a good position where we could have won the Test, but then performed very badly with the bat to lose it.

"Maybe we dropped a couple of catches in that first innings that were quite important. But other than that, the bowlers and fielders were outstanding - and Monty Panesar was great in his comeback game.

"But obviously our batting against spin let us down."