Fletcher accepts blame of Ashes disaster

PERTH (Australia)—As pressure mounts on his position, a defiant England coach Duncan Fletcher accepted some of the blame for his team’s disastrous Ashes defence, but said he wanted to keep his job.
In the wake of England’s defeat in the third Ashes Test, which gave Australia a series-winning 3-0 lead and handed the host nation back the Ashes, Fletcher has been widely criticised for poor team selection and preparation.
Fletcher faced a barraged of questions from English journalists at a press conference here Tuesday, but dismissed criticisms of both aspects of his team’s Ashes defence.
He said it was just the second series England had lost in its last 11 and told his critics it was easy to pick faults over team selection with the benefit of hindsight. “There is blame on all of us,” he said.
“But the people who are criticising now ... a lot of people run with the fox and hunt with the hounds. “All we can do is run with the fox and at the end of the day, we turn around and make these very difficult decisions with a few of us out there trying to see what’s happening in the net practices and how they play in the warm-up games.
“We are quite happy with the teams that we selected in this series.” England’s decision to return home after the Champions Trophy rather than head straight to Australia to acclimatise ahead of the Ashes raised eyebrows, but Fletcher said England had played more than enough cricket this year.
“We’ve been playing cricket non-stop since February, we had one two-and-a-half week break before the ICC tournament,” he said. “I am quite happy that, considering the time we were given and what has taken place, the preparation was good enough.”
Fletcher said he regularly reviewed his position as coach, but that he still felt he had a lot to offer in the role. He lamented the loss of bowling coach Troy Cooley, who was pivotal in the 2005 triumph, but is now part of the Australian camp.
Fletcher said the first three Tests were a tale of wasted opportunities for the English. “Australia played some good cricket and they grabbed opportunities,” he said.
“There were some opportunities, if we had taken them, we could have still been competitive. “There was that one in Adelaide, we had an opportunity three days ago when we bowled them out for 244.”
Despite the defeat, Fletcher said there were positive signs for the future of England cricket, citing the performances of Alastair Cook and Ian Bell in Perth as examples. “We have got quite a young side,” he explained.
“It is quite changed from the Ashes last year, we are missing three major players. “In some ways, you could say we are in a rebuilding phase.
“It is going to take a little bit of time to get them in the shape we had them for the 2005 Ashes.” Fletcher also defended the captaincy of Andrew Flintoff and pointed out that the all-rounder was still learning the role.
“He has done a good job, he has led from the front,” he said. “He hasn’t got the runs he would have liked to have got, but he’s bowled as well as he can and done a good job for England.
“It is a difficult job and he has done as well as he can.” Fletcher said the loss would only strengthen England’s Ashes resolve. “We know what we have got to do to win them back,” he said.—Agencies