England captain Andrew Strauss laments batting failure in Brisbane ODI
England captain Andrew Strauss is disappointed with his team’s consistent failure with the bat that led to the series defeat against http://www.senore.com/Cricket/Australia-c746. The tourists are down 1-4 in the seven-match series which has
left the last two games at Sydney Cricket Ground and WACA Perth of academic interest only.
After the disappointing result at the Gabba, Strauss stated to the media that his batsmen were primarily responsible for the defeat there after seamer Chris Woakes had put them in a strong position with the
second-best figures in the history of English ODI cricket. The youngster became only the second bowler after Paul Collingwood to snare 6 wickets in an ODI innings.
Strauss demanded more responsibility from the batsmen, and he felt that they should have overhauled the 250-run target on a decent track.
This was the first defeat for the English team in an ODI series since 2009. Strauss felt that the consistency with which the batsmen had performed in the last 12-18 months was the missing factor in the current
series.
Strauss added that the batsmen needed to make their starts count for more as mere ‘twenties and thirties’ were not good enough at this level of the game.
"Twenties and thirties and soft dismissals, that's been plaguing us all the way through this series and ultimately that's what has lost us the series. We can't hide away from it, we've got to take it on the
chin, accept it and try and remedy it for these last two games and try and get some momentum heading into the World Cup," he said.
The left handed-batsman has been a disappointment himself in the series. He fell to a reckless pull shot at the Gabba a ball after his opening partner Matt Prior was sent packing by Australian pace spearhead
Brett Lee.
Strauss conceded that the demanding tour Down Under was taking its toll on the players; some of them have been on the road since November when the Ashes started with the first Test at the Gabba. The players
are now eager to return home yet they know that they will have to shift their focus on the World Cup as soon as they arrive back home.
The English squad will leave to take part in the event a mere three days after landing in the home country, and while Strauss wants to brush that aside as a concern, it is difficult not to consider fatigue
and boredom as major factors in the ODI slump.
"If you are mentally fatigued you probably do make poor decisions but I don't think you can just blame every poor decision on mental fatigue," he said. "There's no reason for us to be really fatigued at this
stage. We've got a lot of cricket ahead of us. We look after ourselves well and if guys are starting to think about that then that's a dangerous place for us to be. I don't think they are, but it's something I'll certainly be warning them of."
Meanwhile, the English think-tank has plenty of worries to sort out before the final two ODIs of the ongoing series: pacer Ajmal Shehzad joined the injured party and is likely to miss the rest of the series.
In his place, Liam Plunkett, the right-arm pacer who has been in the wilderness lately, is expected to join the team all the way from the http://www.senore.com/Cricket/West-Indies-c760. After the loss at the Gabba, the English team cannot
wait for the series to end as they set their sights on winning their country’s first ever World Cup trophy.
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