Flower backs England batsmen to banish spin demons in India

London: England coach Andy Flower has backed his batsmen to overcome their problems against spin bowling in the remaining three Test matches against India after they, except captain Alastair Cook and wicket keeper Mathew Prior, surrendered meekly in front of left-arm spinner Pragyan Ojha in the Ahmedabad Test.

In an unwavering show of support and loyalty towards his flops, Flower admitted they had made mistakes, but backed them to come good while the series is still alive. Flower wants them to be judged at the end of the series rather than after one match, but even he knows that just one more first innings failure will be cause to sharpen the knives. “I can’t put my finger exactly on why they are not dovetailing as they did in 2010 and 2011. But I would say that there are three Tests left,” a daily quoted Flower, as saying. “We’ll be judged at the end of it, no doubt, and that is the right time to make those final judgements. Let’s judge our batsmen at the end of this tour, not after one Test match,” he added. “I sincerely hope that at the end of the tour we have fought our way back into the series and shown real skill against spin. I still believe our batsmen can do that. There are some very basic things that we haven’t done well enough,” he said. Flower added: “We have failed in a number of first innings and if you do that in the sub-continent you pay the price. That’s the area where we have failed and I don’t think we should over-complicate it. We have to overturn what seems predictable at the moment.” ANI