Ashes 2010-11 Update: England wicketkeeper-batsman Matt Prior hails team spirit
England’s wicketkeeper-batsman Matt Prior has hailed the unity of his squad after their resounding win in the second Ashes test match against Australia at the Adelaide Oval.
The right-handed batsman believes the England team is a united team, and that it has the potential to do even bigger things in the years to come. He feels the reason for the team’s consistency during the past
two years has been the spirit of camaraderie amongst its members. Prior pointed out that most of England’s players in the current Ashes team have been together for a while now and have spent quality time on and off the field.
He also believes that the team has learnt its lessons together, from previous campaigns. Last year, there were two Test series – one against http://www.senore.com/Cricket/South-Africa-c757 – in which England won
the second Test match of the series, only to then be routed by their opponents in the third, thereby making the series level. The current Ashes Test series seems to have taken that position, with the first Test being a draw and the second won by England. But
Prior believes his team knows from last year’s experiences how not to let history repeat itself.
"If you've got a group of people who've stayed together for a while and experienced things together, you learn from them as a team and as a unit,” said Prior. “Certainly, we learned a huge amount from that South
Africa Test series [last year]. To have a really impressive victory in Durban and underperform horribly in the next game [sic] we take a huge amount from that and learn a lot from it.”
Prior added that the team must guard against complacency and keep up the good work that has brought them a real opportunity of winning the Ashes in Australia for the first time since 1986-97.
"You've got to be careful you don't fall into the trap of too much back-patting too early," he said. "The tour's gone well so far but it's all in the past now. We learned you can't look far ahead and you have
to take every game and every day as it comes. That's why the danger would be to starting thinking 'oh, we're 1-0 up, we can win the Ashes'. All these comments start flooding in and it's tempting to start thinking like that, but you have to guard against it
and not get too carried away."
The English team recorded one of its biggest wins in Ashes history in the second Test at the Adelaide Oval, which was also their 100th Ashes victory overall.
The win in Adelaide was a total team effort, according to Prior, who believes that it was not the players who made the big runs or took the big wickets, but in fact the team as a whole.
“It's very easy to look at the 200s, the big partnerships, the individuals taking five-fers, but it's putting your arm round a mate when he's struggling, celebrating someone else's success, genuinely enjoying
[Alastair] Cook and [Kevin Pietersen’s] double-hundreds. You see the guys on the balcony, and that excitement is not made-up, it's not fake. It's very, very real, I can assure you,” said Prior.
From here on in, the English team has to score a win in only one of the next three Tests to ensure that they will retain the Ashes this year, after having won the series in England in 2009.
The next Test match is at the WACA in Perth, a stadium where English teams of recent times have struggled to cope with the pace and bounce of the pitch. The series ends with the last two Tests at the Melbourne
Cricket Ground and the Sydney Cricket Ground.
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