Cricket: ‘Important’ lessons to learn, says Strauss

Losing captain rues batting failures.

DUBAI:

England captain Andrew Strauss, who will not be featuring in the One-Day International (ODI) and Twenty20 series against Pakistan, admitted his side had ‘important lessons to learn’ after their 71-run defeat in Dubai that sealed a 3-0 whitewash for the hosts.

Strauss, who top-scored in the England’s first-innings with a 56, rued his batsmen’s failure to contribute with big scores.

“I’m a bit surprised we didn’t get bigger scores,” said Strauss. “That was a consistent failure on our part. You have to give credit to Pakistan. When they got their noses ahead in the game, they didn’t let us back in.”

England lost the first Test by 10 wickets, the second by 72 runs before losing the final Test in Dubai, failing to keep out Pakistan spinners with Saeed Ajmal and Abdul Rehman capturing 43 wickets between them.

“The lesson is to get bigger scores on the board in this part of the world and to play the spin bowlers a bit better. Test cricket is difficult by its nature, especially if you allow opposition bowlers to get on top of you, and we regret the way we played in the first Test, which set the tone for the series.

“But every time you come across these kind of things in your career you have to overcome them. We are better at the end of the third Test than we were at the start of the first.”

Published in The Express Tribune, February 7^th, 2012.