England must look to positives

David Lloyd13 April 2012

Two down already and another Ashes thrashing on the cards. But, cheer up, England's Test cricket has come a long way since the darkest days of 1999.

Defeat then by New Zealand dumped Nasser Hussain's side to the foot of the table and home fans at The Oval were heard to sing: "We've got the worst team in the world." Nobody argued.

Since then, though, England have climbed steadily to third spot, behind Australia and South Africa, and they won't slip back even if the world champions whitewash them 5-0 this summer. That may not be great consolation in the face of relentless Aussie gloating, but anything helps.

And Graham Thorpe today sought to do his bit to ease England's plight by giving them the soundest piece of advice they are likely to receive before tomorrow's Third Test at Trent Bridge.

The Surrey batsman, injured for the second time this summer, believes his England mates must stop worrying about the opposition and start concentrating on their own strengths.

"We have not competed with Australia so far this series," said Thorpe, who missed the First Test because of a calf strain and then returned to have his right hand fractured by a Brett Lee delivery at Lord's.

"It is an extremely tall order for us to come back and win it but what we can do is get back to the standards we set over the winter and stand up to Australia. They've had it all their own way and we just don't know how they will react if we start putting them under pressure."

No one gave England much of a chance last summer when they lost the First Test to the West Indies and seemed to be heading for another defeat at Lord's. But the spirit refused to break.

And, all through the winter in Pakistan and Sri Lanka, Nasser Hussain's team would not be torn away from a master plan that required them to do nothing more complicated than stick with the opposition until a chance presented itself to nip by on the outside.

Against Australia, though, England have looked rattled almost from the start.

Instead of remembering how well they had played over the previous year, memories of six consecutive Ashes series defeats came tumbling back to erode confidence. Injuries to Thorpe, Hussain, Michael Vaughan and Ashley Giles have clearly not helped.

But something like 14 missed opportunities in the field, at Edgbaston and Lord's, hurt them even more.

England's catching through the winter, and against Pakistan this summer, was spectacularly good, adding weight to the argument that they are simply too uptight against Australia. "We are simply not helping ourselves at the moment and we need to start giving ourselves a chance of winning," added Thorpe.

Given that Trent Bridge usuallyproduces the best batting strip of the summer, England are ready to play five specialist bowlers for the first time this series - to the delight, presumably, of Darren Gough and Andy Caddick. Gough and Caddick have had to carry the attack. This time, though, they can expect support from spinner Robert Croft and recalled Surrey paceman Alex Tudor as well as Craig White. Tudor will play his first Test for more than two years and now, at 23, it is time for this undeniably talented all-round cricketer to become a regular.

Like the rest of England's players, Tudor should be under no illusion about the task facing him.

But, apart from the scoreline, nothing has changed since the start of the series.

England are playing the best Test team in the world, by a distance, and all anyone requires of them this summer is a competitive performance based on resolute batting, challenging bowling and sound catching.

And, who knows, if they produce all of that it might be just enough to beat Australia and force visiting coach John Buchanan to head for his library in search of some more inspirational literature to pump up his players.

England (from): M Atherton (capt), M Trescothick, M Butcher, GThorpe, A Stewart (wkt), I Ward, U Afzaal, C White, A Tudor, R Croft, A Caddick, D Gough, C Silverwood. Australia (probable): M Slater, M Hayden, R Ponting, M Waugh, S Waugh (capt), D Martyn, A Gilchrist (wkt), S Warne, B Lee, J Gillespie, G McGrath. Umpires: S Venkat (Ind), J Hampshire (Eng). TV replays: D Constant (Eng). Referee: Talat Ali (Pak).

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