There will no hiding place for England's blundering batsmen on the rest of this tour, for the rest of the year, and even in practice sessions with their coach, Andy Flower, who pulled no punches in his analysis of the Saturday afternoon collapse that condemned the world's best Test team to a first series defeat in three years, and left them with a daunting task to avoid a historic and humiliating 3-0 whitewash by Pakistan.
Where the middle order had folded so limply against the apparently irresistible force of Abdur Rehman, Saeed Ajmal and a Pakistan team inspired by the chance to restore their country's tarnished cricketing reputation, Flower bristled with quiet intent. "I don't like being too philosophical about it because you have to take action in sport, and you can't be too accepting of failure," he said after suffering consecutive Test defeats for the first time in 11 series and 38 matches in charge. "I don't want players to be philosophical about it. The challenge ahead of us is not going to go away. The third Test will be played in similar conditions, then we have the one-day series, the Twenty20s, a series in Sri Lanka and another in India. We have to front up and take action."
When asked directly whether a team who have crumbled to spin for 192, 160 and 72 in three of their four innings in this series have the ability to rise to that challenge over the next few weeks in the Gulf, then in Sri Lanka in April and India in the autumn, Flower responded: "At the moment I think it's up for debate on the batting front. International cricket does put you under pressure – and your skills will be scrutinised by bowlers in these conditions. Both pitches have been excellent and have made for really interesting cricket. This one made for fascinating cricket for most of the time – but horrifying on the last day."
He agreed that Alastair Cook and Jonathan Trott have already shown the ability to adapt, and there was no discussion of the continued concern over the captain, Andrew Strauss, which was hardly eased by a determined but unconvincing 32 in the second innings.
But Flower made no attempt to disguise his anxiety over the meagre return in the series so far from numbers four, five and six – Kevin Pietersen, Ian Bell and Eoin Morgan – who have managed 94 runs between them from 12 innings. "You will struggle to win Tests with those contributions from the middle order," he said.
"We weren't good enough against their spin bowlers. We didn't reverse the pressure. We didn't put them under pressure – a combination of us not being skilful enough and not handling the pressure well enough. Each individual has to find his own method and tempo against the spinners and his own method of reversing the pressure.
"Kevin is now challenged by not scoring any runs in the first two Tests, definitely. But he has a record of working things out. He's a world-class player who has done a lot of great things with a bat in his hand and has helped England win a lot of games. I expect him to do it again."
Flower hinted that he is less impressed by Pietersen's decision to play Twenty20 cricket in the Indian Premier League between the Sri Lanka tour and the home series next summer against West Indies and South Africa, but said "that's a separate case".
Of Morgan, whose place would seem most likely to be taken by Ravi Bopara, Flower said: "He hasn't played for a long time and didn't get any runs in the warm-up games. He hasn't got any in either Test too so it's not surprising he's not feeling on top form. Bell didn't get many in warm-up games or either of the Tests. This is a different challenge. Playing spin here is completely different to playing it at home.
"I don't think we can get away from the fact that you have to work out a method and if that involves rethinking your strategy, you've got to do that. It's very tricky doing it mid-series – it's very tricky doing it mid-career – but there's no getting away from the fact that some of the methods we've employed over the first two Tests haven't worked."
Flower himself will play the main coaching role following the departure of the batting coach, Graham Gooch, on the first morning of the second Test. "Graham is on a consultancy contract and he's got a certain number of days a year," he said, confirming that "ideally" Gooch's role would be full-time – the reluctance to make it so, for financial reasons, now shaping as a seriously false economy.
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