Friday, March 27, 2009

England 'embarrassed' by collapse

Andrew Flintoff and Andrew Strauss
Even with Flintoff back in the side, Strauss's team were totally outclassed

England captain Andrew Strauss conceded his side felt "pretty embarrassed" after being thrashed by West Indies in the third one-day international.

Dismissed for 117 in 41.3 overs, they were brutally brushed aside by the aggressive strokeplay of Chris Gayle, who hit 80 off just 42 balls.

"It wasn't good enough, humiliating to be honest," said Strauss, whose side are now 2-1 behind in the series.

"There was some very poor batting early on and we paid the price."

Strauss sensibly refused to offer excuses, adding: "There are 11 guys in our dressing room who are feeling pretty down on themselves right now. It wasn't a contest, we didn't play well and there wasn't enough thought in the way we batted.

"We have got to take it on the chin. We know we played very badly and we haven't done ourselves justice and I suppose the only positive is that we have a game in two days time to put it right."

England are planning an extra net session on Saturday following their woeful display and Strauss went on: "My experience with England is when we put in performances like that we always bounce back pretty well.

"I'm cautiously optimistic about Sunday's game but at the same time we need to learn from what we did today. I think we need to dig pretty deep and find a way of making sure we come off that field with a victory.

"That's going to take individual players grabbing responsibility and saying, 'I'm going to be a match-winner today.' If two or three of us do that then we've got a good chance of winning.

"In my experience with England when we're bad, we're pretty bad. We don't have that consistency.

You can't afford to be Jekyll and Hyde and we're too like that at the moment

Andrew Strauss

"If you're beaten you've got to make sure you're beaten off the last ball or in a very tight game so you can't afford to be Jekyll and Hyde and we're too like that at the moment."

Any result other than a win in the penultimate match in Bridgetown will give West Indies the series - and complete a miserable winter's work for Strauss's men.

Gayle, meanwhile, was proud of his day's work, and the efforts of his team-mates in the field. After winning the Test series West Indies are within touching distance of doing the double over England.

He said: "It was a brilliant knock and a good wicket to bat on, extremely good. It was a good innings and I am pretty happy. We all did well - bowling, batting, fielding - and played a good game of cricket, which was tremendous.

"We'd love to better our performance from this game on Sunday. I'm sure England will come at us but we'll be ready."

606: DEBATE
Sporting-Allrounder

Gayle, leading a team said to be so angry over low pay that they are considering going on strike, added: "Our team spirit is very high and I want to commend the guys on that."

All-rounder Dwayne Bravo, who claimed the man-of-the-match award for his spell of 4-19 despite Gayle's brilliant batting, said: "What really kicked it off for us was the start we were given by our opening bowlers.

"They created a lot of pressure up front and when that happens batsmen tend to lose their wickets."

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