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Home > Cricket > England's tour of India > Reuters > Report


Team looking up to Freddie: Jones

April 05, 2006 18:43 IST

Wicketkeeper Geraint Jones believes England's [Images] inexperienced team are still capable of competing with India despite trailing 3-0 in the seven-match one-day international series.

"The passion is there," Jones told a news conference on Wednesday, a day ahead of the fourth one-dayer.

"It has been a long, tough tour and this has just been a difficult period where we have not had the success we wanted."

England won their first Test in India in 21 years last month to earn a 1-1 split of the three-Test series, but they have struggled in the one-dayers.

The 29-year-old Jones felt the absence of experienced batsmen like captain Michael Vaughan [Images] (injury) and Marcus Trescothick [Images] (personal reasons) have made it difficult.

"We had new guys coming into the one-day squad," he added.

"One-day cricket is an intense test of one's skills straight away and you are under a lot of pressure.

"With the Test side you got two warm-up matches and you had sufficient time to get into the flow. But the fact is we have not performed the way we should have."

England struggled with their batting in the three matches.

They collapsed from a strong 117-3, chasing 204 for victory, to lose the first one-dayer by 39 runs in Delhi.

The tourists failed to step up the scoring rate in the final 10 overs in the second match in Faridabad and the batting collapsed in a wearing pitch in the third match in Goa [Images].

"Obviously we proved to be lacking in the run department. That's an area we will talk about and have to address," he said.

"Going by previous scores, this is a high-scoring venue. We hope to make a decent score," he said, referring to the strip in the southern Indian coastal city.

"We want to win every one-day game that we can. It has just been a difficult period."

Jones said the team was looking up to stand-in captain Andrew Flintoff [Images] to show the way.

"Freddie (Flintoff) does that naturally. It is not something he has made an extra effort to do. The spirits of the boys are pretty good."


Englands's tour of India: The Complete Coverage

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