Defeat in first Test set tone for series - gulfnews.com

Dubai: England skipper Andrew Strauss had no excuses to offer following his team's 71-run defeat to Pakistan on the fourth day of the third Test match which ended in Pakistan inflicting a clean sweep victory over them.

"We did not bat well in all the three Test matches, to be honest with ourselves. If you keep getting out for 140 or 150 then you are not going to win many Test matches. There are obviously some regrets from the batsmen about the way we played their spinners, more regrets particularly on how we played in the first Test because that sets the tone for the rest of the series and it became difficult after that point," he said.

Strauss even went on to praise the Pakistan bowlers. "You need to give Pakistan a huge amount of credit because their two spinners were very impressive and made life difficult for ourselves. Whenever we did get in front of them in Tests they were able to wrest the initiative back in their favour."

Strauss does not believe that it is the end of the world for his batsmen following their failure to play the Pakistan spinners. "If you are a good enough player you can find a way. Frankly, I haven't been involved in any series where so many of our batsmen have had hard time as this one. We have all got some questions to answer individually, do some soul searching and thoughts to put into how we can do things better to go forward.

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Rediscovering form

"It is also important that guys for the One-day series here allow that form of the game to help them rediscover the form and those who aren't part of the One-day must start turning their attention towards the Sri Lankan series. There it may not be the same challenges as here, but they will be slightly different in terms of the conditions, so we need to learn lessons from this, but we don't need to dwell on that."

When asked whether there is a single reason for the failure of all the batsmen not coming good, Strauss said: "The challenges here are quite unique and you need to adapt to the conditions and also the Pakistan bowlers in particular who are quite unique. They are a different type of spinner and it's tough to prepare against them without facing them. However, I have got great faith in my batsmen. Some of them are the world's best and we are disappointed that we have not coped better. We need to look better as a unit and maybe this is a good eyeopener for us and a good wake-up call that things are not easy in this part of the world. With two more subcontinental tours this year things aren't going to get easier."

To a query as to what kind of analysis needs to be done about the series, Strauss said: "I think it's important for us to take some time to let the dust settle, then start thinking about what went wrong individually and what components the team needs to function properly. And also the components the team needs to play the type of cricket to win here."

Strauss also said that they did not underestimate Pakistan. "We never underestimated Pakistan. We knew that their spinners were good enough and their seamers have also created problems for oppositions."