Coach Flower has doubts about England's ability to play spin

Sydney, Jan 30(ANI): England coach Andy Flower has confessed he isn't sure whether some of his batsmen are competent enough to play spin bowling in the subcontinent.

In three out of four innings, the England team hopelessly surrendered to Pakistan's spin duo of Saeed Ajmal and Abdur Rehman.

Flower is now perplexed over whether England batsmen, who led the team to the number one ranking in the world by winning a series against Australia Down Under and India at home, are capable enough of getting them glory on Asian pitches.

"At the moment I think it's up for debate on the batting front. We weren't good enough against their spin bowlers," The Mirror quoted Flower, as saying.

Flower said he didn't expect his team to collapse for 72 in the second Test against Pakistan and neither did he expect them to lose a Test series with just two Tests into the year.

Flower also rued his team's lack of building pressure on the Pakistani team and believes his batsmen needed to work on their strategy again.

"We didn't reverse the pressure and we didn't put them under pressure."

"That was fairly obvious and it was a combination of us not being skilful enough and not handling the pressure well enough. Playing spin here is completely different to playing it at home or in Australia," he added.

He believes his batsmen need to work on their strategy while facing spinners in such conditions, but also admitted that it's going to be a difficult job for them to do that in the middle of their careers.

"I don't think we can get away from the fact you have to work out a method and if that involves rethinking your strategy against then you've got to do that.

"I think some of them have to do that. It's very tricky doing it mid-series and it's very tricky doing it mid-career but there's no getting away from the fact some of the methods we've employed over the first two Tests haven't worked," he further added. (ANI)