James Anderson for The Daily Mail
We didn’t just let ourselves down in the First Test but we let our management and supporters down, and we are acutely aware that our performance was nowhere near good enough.
Life as a professional sportsman is all about winning, so to lose in that manner, hurts a great deal.
As a coach, Andy Flower had every right to fly off the handle at us for the way we played, and in particular the way we batted, against a Pakistan team who performed with far more focus and sharpness than us.
Andy cares passionately about this England side and does everything in his power to ensure we are immaculately prepared, which makes it all the more frustrating that we seemed to be caught cold on that first morning. Being bowled out for under 200 on that wicket was pretty inexcusable.
Saeed Ajmal is a fine bowler — and it’s for the ICC to decide on his action, not us — but I actually didn’t think he bowled particularly well, even if he did take seven for 55.
Our batsmen just made poor decisions and we paid a heavy price for that. Despite the substandard nature of our performance, Andy kept his calm and delivered an honest and frank assessment in what was an admittedly shell shocked dressing room.
People have pointed to the fact this was our first game since being named the world’s best Test team and that the pressure might have got to us, or we believed our own Press.
Some of the abuse on Twitter has been especially severe, and rightly so. But the fact we’ve just been named the No 1 team is irrelevant.
It wouldn’t matter when we produced a performance like that, it would still be unacceptable.
We set ourselves high standards as a team and we fell well below them. It’s not a question of having to completely rethink our game plan or reinvent the wheel, and we certainly haven’t become a bad side in one performance. Our batsmen just need to make better decisions.
We’ve earned the right to be called the world’s best Test team and next week will show if we are good enough to stay there.
