Coach Flower calls on England cricket stars to improve

Dubai, Jan.21 (ANI): England cricket team coach Andy Flower has asked his squad of players to improve their work ethic and approach to the game after losing the first Test to Pakistan here by ten wickets.

England has recovered impressively several times from what captain Andrew Strauss last night termed "aberrations".

Flower today echoed Strauss' straight talking, agreeing too that there should not and must not be any panic from England after one - albeit unexpected and landslide - defeat.

He is well aware they know as well as him that they did not do themselves, or their ICC seeding, the remotest justice in the first Test.

The Mirror quoted Flower, as saying: "One of our principles is to continually improve - and we can certainly improve on this performance."

He added: "We all know that it was the batting that let us down in this Test. But our batsmen have a pretty good record against spin, so I don't think it's a matter of reinventing the wheel. Of course, we will try to learn from it."

"All batsmen are under pressure to make good decisions, and it's unfair to single out one batsman (for the defeat)." Flower said.

He added: "Our batsmen have a record of making a lot of very good decisions, and that's part of the reason why we've done so well recently."

England began this three-match series four days ago after four months away from Test cricket, and Flower concedes a break of that length is inevitably a mixed blessing.

He said: "It might be fair to say that the lay-off we've had probably means people aren't quite up to speed as we usually are.

"But we needed that break. The players needed a mental and physical break - and you can't have it all ways. Our challenge now is to get up to speed for the second Test," he added.

"It's going to take a lot of great cricket to ensure firstly that we get up level with them, and then see if we can win," he concluded. (ANI)