MELBOURNE: England played the “perfect” game in Adelaide to take a 1-0 lead over Australia in the Ashes series but there was little danger of complacency as the team had achieved nothing so far, coach Andy Flower said on Wednesday.
“You don’t often get the perfect game like that where you bowl the opposition out on a good deck on the first day and get a big lead,” Flower told reporters at the team’s hotel a day after England’s innings and 71-run victory in the second test.
“We played to win the game. It’s nothing more complicated than that. To do that, the players have to deliver certain skills under pressure and they did that really well in Adelaide.”
After plundering Australia’s attack in the second innings of the first test in Brisbane, England’s batsmen roared to a 620-5 declared total in their first innings at Adelaide Oval. Their bowlers then cut short Australia’s second innings fight back by skittling the remaining six wickets in the morning session on the fifth day.
“Without a doubt we can (improve). Adelaide was the first time that we have seen batsmen back up big hundreds with more big runs. “But it’s not often that our guys deliver big hundreds consecutively. And I think that was a great thing to see, so we want to see more of that from our batsmen.”
One outstanding match would not guarantee England success in Perth, Flower said, where the team will miss the services of injured paceman Stuart Broad.
“How can we be complacent when were ranked number four in the world? We’ve got a long way to go and were only one-nil up in a five-test series. So that would be a crazy one, Flower added.
Quick James Anderson’s preparations for Perth would also be affected as he had flown home for the birth of his child and was not expected to re-join his team mates until shortly before the test.
Flower will rest two of his bowlers for tour match against Victoria at the MCG on Friday to have the option of playing Chris Tremlett, Tim Bresnan and Ajmal Shahzad.
The England coach was cagey about his remaining selections but confirmed that wicketkeeper-batsman Steven Davies and Irish cricketer Eoin Morgan would be in the side along with captain Andrew Strauss, the only top-order England batsman to fail in Adelaide.
