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David Hemp will lead Bermuda in the ICC Americas T20 Qualifier between July 17 and 25 in Florida, the Bermuda Cricket Board has announced. The 14-man squad will convene for training sessions next week.Bermuda’s coach David Moore said he is pleased with the squad and the selection process. “The T20 National Team series [a series that coupled as national try-outs] has been an excellent exercise, not only for the selection of the team, but the development of the players and their improved understanding of the T20 game,” he said. “It is good to welcome back some players that have international experience and have been away from the squad.”Squad: David Hemp (capt), Stephen Outerbridge, Oronde Bascome, Lionel Cann, Fiqre Crockwell, Chris Douglas, OJ Pitcher, Joshua Gilbert, Malachi Jones, Kamau Leverock, Dean Minors (wk), George O’Brien, Samuel Robinson, Rodney TrottStandbys: Dennico Hollis, Jordan De Silva, Lateef Trott

ScorecardIreland captain Will Porterfield carried reigning north group champions Warwickshire to a five-wicket win in their opening Friends Life t20 match against Durham at Chester-le-Street.On a glorious evening the left-hander repeated his demolition of the Durham attack in a Clydesdale Bank 40 league match at Edgbaston 12 days ago. He scored 80 in that match as Warwickshire cruised past a total of 286 for 3 and this time he made 83 off 53 balls before being run out with the scores level on 151 and two overs left.Warwickshire’s other star was 22-year-old medium pacer Steffan Piolet, who took 2 for 19 in four overs. He put the brake on Durham after they were put in and Phil Mustard and Gordon Muchall had 55 on the board after six overs. In the end the hosts were indebted to Ian Blackwell’s unbeaten 46 off 32 balls for a total of 151 for 3.Paul Collingwood faced three successive dot balls from Piolet and made only 7 off 10 balls before driving Darren Maddy to long-on on his return following his knee operation. Piolet kept the ball well up and had Muchall caught at long-off for 35 off 27 balls before Mustard skied a catch to mid-off. The wicketkeeper had been unable to accelerate in making 38 off 39 balls.Blackwell hit two sixes but he was also kept in check at the end of the innings, with Neil Carter conceding only three runs off the 19th over.Porterfield had the luxury of going to the crease in the second over after Carter had already hit two sixes in his first appearance of the season. He made 18 off eight balls before lobbing a reverse paddle to short third man. Although he received little support, Porterfield kept Warwickshire ahead of the clock as he raced to 50 off 30 balls, driving sixes off Mitchell Claydon and Collingwood.Collingwood’s first over cost only five and judging by the time it took the third umpire to decide Porterfield had not been stumped on 35 it must have been close. But there was no further tension, even when the third umpire was called upon again to decide that Porterfield had been run out when he set off for the winning single and Rikki Clarke sent him back. Clarke made sure of victory by driving the next ball for four past mid-off.

Scorecard and ball-by-ball details
How they were out
Ambati Rayudu made sure Mumbai’s star bowlers got enough to defend•AFP

Mumbai Indians played like the dominant side they have been this IPL, and Delhi Daredevils like the middling one they have been. Consequently Mumbai took another step towards qualification for the next round, Delhi towards elimination.Except for a period of four overs where Mumbai lost two wickets for 17 runs, they bossed the whole game. Aiden Blizzard teased headline writers with seven boundaries off Morne Morkel’s first two overs, and then Ambati Rayudu and Rohit Sharma absorbed the shock of two quick wickets to follow it up with an assault that got Mumbai 67 off the last six overs.On a flat and quick pitch, with short boundaries, 178 was still not beyond Virender Sehwag and David Warner. Not against Mumbai, though, whose big three with the ball – Lasith Malinga, Harbhajan Singh and Munaf Patel – killed the game in three overs. Harbhajan got Warner with a straighter one, Colin Ingram had no clue about a Malinga yorker, and Munaf got a top edge from Sehwag first ball. It left Delhi too steep a climb, although an 87-run stand between half-centurion James Hopes and Venugopal Rao meant sure all time-outs were utilised.The first innings had got off to a similarly emphatic start for Mumbai. Blizzard took to the pace and the regulation length from Morkel, who has troubled a few Indian batsmen with pace and bounce. To Blizzard, though the faster they came, the faster they went. One of the seven boundaries was a cut from in front of leg stump. A defeated Morkel found time for a bemused smile even as the total reached 50 in five overs.Irfan Pathan, though, found swing, and with a wicket-maiden brought Delhi back. Shahbaz Nadeem added to Sachin Tendulkar’s wicket when he removed Blizzard with one that skidded on. This was a time when things could have easily gone wrong for Mumbai, but Rayudu and Rohit batted sensibly. It was Rayudu who took lead in both rebuilding and in attacking once he was in.Rayudu began pushing Delhi out of the contest in the 10th over when he targeted James Hopes. He moved across the stumps, and waited with a high back lift. He got a length ball from Hopes, and pulled it over short fine leg. It didn’t make for pleasant viewing, but Rayudu immediately balanced it aesthetically with a proper drive through extra cover next over. Two overs later, Ajit Agarkar served him a leg-stump half-volley, which Rayudu flicked out of Agarkar’s home ground.Rayudu’s hitting rubbed onto Rohit, who lofted Morkel and Hopes for lovely straight sixes. Morkel found a semblance of redemption with Rohit’s wicket in the 17th over, Agarkar with a last over to Kieron Pollard and Andrew Symonds that went for just five. In between, though, Rayudu punished Delhi some more. He didn’t go hell for leather, instead he placed his shots well and hit Nadeem and Hopes for a six and three fours. From 30 off 26 he had gone to 59 off 39. Malinga, Harbhajan and Munaf soon told him he had done enough.

Hosts Botswana recovered from their loss on Sunday, and beat Japan convincingly at the Botswana Cricket Association Oval in Gaborone. Japan were put in on a windy morning and the openers put together 23 before Gavin Beath was run out. That opened the floodgates and Japan crashed to 84 all out in 31.4 overs. Seamer Omar Ali took a couple of wickets early before left-arm spinner Karabo Modise ran through the middle order and tail. Botswana chased the total in 29.5 overs for the loss of two wickets. Faisal Rana was the game’s top-scorer with 26.Sean Philips’ unbeaten 71 eclipsed Milan Fernando’s 82 as Nigeria beat Germany by two wickets at the Lobatse Ground. Despite Fernando’s knock, Germany only managed 166 in their 50 overs, but it looked like that might be enough after they reduced Nigeria to 32 for 3. Philips put together 59 runs with his captain Endurance Ofem to get the chase back on track. Wickets kept falling at the other end, though, and Germany stayed in the game till the end. Philips shielded the strike from No. 10 Joshua Ogunlola, who faced just one ball in an 11-run partnership that took Nigeria home to their second win of the tournament.Kuwait also notched up their second victory, but they were made to work for it by a spirited Norway side. Norway chose to bat in Gaborone, and were soon reduced to 57 for 4 by fast bowler Mohammad Murad. Ehetsham-ul-Haq and Shahbaz Butt led the recovery, putting together 155 for the fifth wicket and helping Norway reach 246. Ehetsham scored 69 while Shahbaz got 72 not out, while Murad ended with 6 for 39. Irfan Bhatti got Kuwait off to a brisk start in their chase and scored 64. Norway gave themselves a chance with a couple of quick wickets, but Sibtain Raza, who scored 77 not out, and Hisham Mirza, who got 64 not out, took Kuwait home.

Former Australia batsman Stuart Law has been asked to be interim coach of the Sri Lanka team for the tour of England starting next month. Law had assisted outgoing Australian head coach Trevor Bayliss since November 2009 and is expected to take over his a full-time successor.Bayliss, who was head coach for the past four years, had stated that he would be quitting the job after the 2011 World Cup, where Sri Lanka were losing finalists. “We have requested Law to take over as coach for the England tour until we finalise our headhunt for Trevor Bayliss’ successor,” SLC secretary Nishantha Ranatunga said.The last two days have been a period of upheaval for Sri Lankan cricket, with Kumar Sangakkara and Mahela Jayawardene stepping down from their leadership roles, and the selection committee resigning.Sri Lanka commences a tour of England on the second week of May and the itinerary comprises three Tests and five ODIs.

For half the match, it almost looked like Zimbabwe would challenge Australia. Their spinners bowled well, their fielding was excellent and they kept the world champions to a gettable 262. Could it be that Zimbabwe, not a minnow but by no means a piranha, would end the 23-match World Cup winning streak of the biggest fish in the cricketing pond? Well, no, because Shaun Tait, Mitchell Johnson and Brett Lee were still to play their part.But what Zimbabwe showed was that they can compete with the strongest sides, and toppling a higher-ranked team or two is not out of the question over the next few weeks. On the sluggish pitches they will encounter, the spin of Ray Price, Prosper Utseya and Graeme Cremer will be key, but to really threaten, they must find runs from their top order.Brendan Taylor, Charles Coventry and Tatenda Taibu have the talent to give their side good starts, but the speed of Australia’s bowlers was simply too much. Coventry slapped Lee over point for six but was jumpy in playing the shorter balls, and was caught when he top-edged an attempted pull, and Taylor was beaten by the sheer pace of an accurate Tait delivery.”I was really pleased with the way we bowled and fielded,” Zimbabwe’s coach Alan Butcher said after the 91-run loss. “We had a disaster against Ireland in the field [in the warm-up game] and we’ve worked very hard to put that right, because that’s one of our strengths and we have to be good at that. I would say that I’m qualified in my praise for the team because, yes, most of it was okay, but we obviously need to bat better.”We didn’t really play [the fast bowlers] as well as we might have done. We don’t see too much of that sort of pace in Zimbabwe, so it’s something we’re going to have to get used to if we’re going to compete at the top level of international cricket.”Zimbabwe’s next game is far from a top-of-the-table clash, against Canada in Nagpur next Monday, and they will fancy their chances of securing their opening win of the tournament. Led by Price, who is a tricky customer with the new ball, their spinners kept Australia on the leash at Motera, and they were backed up in the field, highlighted by a frighteningly accurate throw from Chris Mpofu in the deep that caught Ricky Ponting short.”It’s a big positive for the team, I thought our bowling and fielding was superb today,” Zimbabwe captain Elton Chigumbura said. “It’s something that we have to carry on in the rest of the tournament. Now we just have to work on our batting. We just have to make sure that we keep wickets in hand in the early period. After ten overs, that’s when we lost two or three quick wickets. From there, playing a bigger team it’s always hard to come back.”But to their credit, Zimbabwe didn’t fold after crashing to 44 for 4, and some lower-order runs helped them climb to 171. It was another positive in a match that should give Zimbabwean fans hope of a heartening World Cup campaign.

Darren Sammy’s Twitter page has been quiet of late. There is no flamboyance of old. He is not talking, social-networking rather, of the honey from the comb, of slippery balls, of fine legs. To be fair to Sammy, those were the days before the West Indies captaincy happened to him. Things have changed since then. His last sign of flair was on January 10 when he tweeted: “Nurses needed@ the Sir viv stadium, windwards team will be in labor,contractions from 4pm. STARS WILL BE BORN.” And this is a tamer version of the old Sammy.It is fair to say that captaincy has mellowed down the tweeter in Sammy. It is a sign of the responsibility that captaincy of a group of islands with a proud cricketing history brings. Sammy also knows that captaincy brings with itself another responsibility: that of individual performance to be able to command the respect of a disparate team, to justify his selection as a player first. While he has successfully established a measure of control on his tweeting, the same can’t be emphatically said on the performance front.In ODIs, Sammy last took a wicket against a Test-playing nation in February 2010. As captain, he averages 75.33 with the ball and 8.5 with the bat. Then again, he is not the kind of cricketer that will be done justice to by numbers alone. Sammy the cricketer is the exact opposite of Sammy the tweeter. No one expects him to set the world on fire with either his batting or bowling. What stood out before Sammy became the captain was that he was the hard-working kind, the sensible head in a team that has now earned a reputation of not always playing sensible cricket, of not always fighting till the bitter end.Darren Sammy doesn’t have the flair, but he has the passion•AFP

Sammy didn’t have the flair, but he had passion. Then again, the first question when he was named captain was, how far passion and hard work alone would carry him. Especially when bits-and-pieces players like him don’t quite have the comfort of match-winning brilliance to fall back on. The rope is usually shorter for such players. The cold fact right now remains that Sammy bats too low for a non-threatening medium-pacer as himself to be termed an allrounder. Questions will be asked when he is the captain of the side too. In fact questions are being asked.Sammy’s response is full of the positivity that perhaps was a factor when he was named captain. “As a captain, you’d want to perform,” Sammy said on the eve of the crucial match against Bangladesh in Mirpur. “For me I always feel like I am only one great performance away. I have the right mindset to lead the team, and the team is responding, and I am aware of my own personal form. The kind of person I am, the kind of mentality I have, I am only one performance away from being at my best. That’s how I see it.”To make matters worse, West Indies have lost Dwayne Bravo to injury. Sammy says they have been using the loss of Bravo as their inspiration. It should also come as an opportunity for Sammy to push himself slightly higher up in the order, and also bowl more overs and look to take wickets with the ball. West Indies have never been ranked so low going into a World Cup, in terms of ICC ratings and expectations. The opponents generally still fear one of those Chris Gayle days, but not much else, especially with Bravo out of the equation. A significant performance from Sammy would go a long way in disproving that notion. He could tweet about it then.

Andrew Strauss didn’t pull any punches in admitting England’s batting had been well off the pace during the one-day series after they slumped to a 51-run defeat at Brisbane which means there are now two dead matches. Chasing 250, which Strauss thought was well within range, England subsided to 198 all out and only reached that far because the final wicket added 53.It continued a familiar tone for the visitors who haven’t been able to replicate their century-making Ashes form in coloured clothes. Only Jonathan Trott with 102 at Adelaide has passed three figures and it was no coincidence that was the match England managed to win. Strauss has backed his players in their attacking approach, but wickets have been donated far too easily to the Australian bowlers.”We’ve all got to put our hands up because we’ve all been a part of it,” Strauss said. “One of the improvements we have made in one-day cricket over the past 12 or 18 months was a lot of our batsmen getting bigger scores more consistently, but we’ve fallen into bad habits in this series.”Twenties and thirties and soft dismissals, that’s been plaguing us all the way through this series and ultimately that’s what has lost us the series. We can’t hide away from it, we’ve got to take it on the chin, accept it and try and remedy it for these last two games and try and get some momentum heading into the World Cup.”After the two remaining matches of this series those players heading to the World Cup have three days at home before nearly another two months overseas. Strauss conceded that tired minds can make poor decisions in the middle but doesn’t believe fatigue is the root of England’s problems and will be driving home the need to lift performances.”If you are mentally fatigued you probably do make poor decisions but I don’t think you can just blame every poor decision on mental fatigue,” he said. “There’s no reason for us to be really fatigued at this stage. We’ve got a lot of cricket ahead of us. We look after ourselves well and if guys are starting to think about that then that’s a dangerous place for us to be. I don’t think they are, but it’s something I’ll certainly be warning them of.”Despite the short turnaround to the World Cup, Strauss isn’t concerned about this series having a major impact on England’s chances on the subcontinent. There is precedence for England lifting themselves after a one-day drubbing because following the 6-1 loss in the wake of the 2009 Ashes they reached the semi-finals of the Champions Trophy.”Even a few days at home refreshes you and then you can turn up at a World Cup, a massive event and one that we’re very excited about, and that should give us quite a lot of impetus going into that tournament,” Strauss said. “There’s no doubt about it, as a batting group we’ve got to be better than we have been. We’re not going to hide away from it. We’ve got two more games to make some improvements.”

South African’s drawn Test series against Pakistan on placid pitches in the United Arab Emirates left their bowlers craving livelier surfaces. Their cravings for responsive tracks are set to be soothed soon. The three-Test series against India gets underway in exactly three weeks time and India’s batsmen should start bracing themselves for more bounce and pace than they are comfortable with.”We’ve got to take our strengths into consideration, and hopefully we have wickets that will play to those strengths and help us rather than the opposition,” South Africa coach Corrie van Zyl said at the team’s arrival press conference in Johannesburg on Thursday. “We will hope for conditions that suit our type of players and our type of bowling should come into it.”With that reliance comes with the danger that South Africa could be lulled into complacency, safe in the knowledge that their own conditions could be their 12th man on the field, but van Zyl insisted they wouldn’t be over-reliant on familiar, pace-friendly pitches. “To do that is bit of a Russian roulette approach, and I wouldn’t go that far. We don’t want to make it a lottery and we don’t want the outcome of the series to rest on how the wickets play.”Part of the reason for South African’s new sense of wariness is that in the last two years Indian batsmen have had the opportunity to play on bouncier South African tracks during tournaments such as the IPL, Champions League and Champions Trophy. “They’ve obviously had a lot more exposure on our wickets, but the proof of the pudding is in the eating. We’ll have to see how well-adapted they are,” van Zyl said.Despite the practice India’s batsmen have had, van Zyl still believes their biggest weakness when playing away from home may come back to haunt them. “When you’ve played on a certain type of wicket for a long time, and all of a sudden you come and play on a bouncy wicket it’s still going to be a handful.”South Africa want to maximise their advantage on seamer-friendly pitches. They will add a pace bowler to their starting XI to work with Dale Steyn, Morne Morkel and Jacques Kallis. “The fourth seamer is definitely going to play a role in SA,” confirmed van Zyl. Who that extra pace man will be is a mystery. Lonwabo Tsotsobe and Wayne Parnell were both part of the touring party against Pakistan, but did not feature in either of the two Tests.The fourth seamer means that South Africa is likely to use only one spinner against India. Johan Botha, who played as the second spinner in the Tests against Pakistan, doesn’t think it will be him. “Paul [Harris] has done a good job, and he’s done it for a few years now. I think he’s still number one against India. I doubt we’ll play two spinners, but hopefully I’ve done enough that if there’s a gap I would take it.”South Africa’s Achilles’ heel has been the lack of an attacking spinner and the series against Pakistan gave the slow bowlers an opportunity to stake their claim as part of the wicket-taking clan. For the most part they failed to do so – barring a three-wicket burst from Harris and Botha after lunch on day five of the second Test. Van Zyl wasn’t concerned with the lack of penetration, however. “We felt that two spinners would do the job,” he said. “But the pitch turned out not to deteriorate the way we wanted.”With the Indian batsmen’s level of comfort against spin, particularly of the mediocre kind, South Africa may want to cast their net out for a wicket-taking turner. They’d have to look no further than Pakistani-born Imran Tahir, who has claimed 30 wickets in four first-class games this season at an average of 22.00. Tahir was selected in January this year to play against England but was ineligible to play for South Africa because he did not have the necessary documentation. There is a strong feeling that he will be picked as soon as his papers are in order and he he becomes available.”When?”, is the question even van Zyl is asking, as no-one seems to have a date for Tahir’s status as a South African citizen to be rubber stamped. “The authorities are assisting him”, said South African team manager Mohammed Moosajee. “But he will have to tell us when he receives his papers”. Tahir is expected to be eligible from December, but the exact day is anyone’s guess.South Africa have plenty to think about on the bowling front and almost as much on their minds about batting. Graeme Smith suffered a fractured finger during the series against Pakistan and is likely to miss at least the first Test against India. “I’m hopeful that he will be ready for the first Test. But to say I’m not nervous that he won’t be wouldn’t be honest,” said van Zyl.Hashim Amla also has an arm injury after being painfully hit by a Misbah-ul-Haq pull shot while fielding at short leg, which means van Zyl could be without both two of his top three. “The blow he took yesterday caused a contusion to his left forearm,” Moosajee said, but added that the on-form Amla “should be fine” in time for the first Test on December 16 in Centurion.The three Tests will be followed by a Twenty20 and five ODIs. Van Zyl said he will use the last outing before the World Cup to fine tune his combinations. “By this Indian series we want to be as close to the World Cup 15 as can be.” South Africa beat Pakistan 3-2 in the ODI series in the UAE and, according to van Zyl, gained valuable experience from the close contest. “This tour has given us a lot of answers. To play in what amounted to a final and to win that has given the guys a lot of confidence.”Botha believes India will present an ideal challenge ahead of the team’s quest for ICC silverware in February. “The one-day series will be good preparation for the World Cup. You want to bowl against quality players, and you know the Indian team is a world class unit. If you do well against them you are going to have a lot of confidence going into the World Cup.”

In September 2006, when Andrew Strauss was overlooked as England captain for what turned out to be the ultimate Ashes Tour from Hell, his then-coach Duncan Fletcher consoled him with the words: “One day, you might thank me for this.” Four years down the line, and with a wealth of experiences good, bad and downright ugly to fall back on, Fletcher’s assertion is starting to look prophetic.It’s not simply that Strauss avoided the ignominy of leading England to a 5-0 whitewash last time around – that fate instead befell Andrew Flintoff, and such was the single-minded resolve of champion cricketers such as Shane Warne, Glenn McGrath and Adam Gilchrist, it’s hard to believe that a change of England leader could have significantly altered the result. More importantly from Strauss’s point of view, by missing out four years ago, his time as captain was postponed until he as a player was ready, and on the eve of the 2010-11 campaign – with a starring role in last year’s triumph to fall back on – it was hard to imagine anyone else in the hot seat.”There’s a relaxed excitement about the troops at the moment,” Strauss told reporters at Lord’s. “They feel ready and up for it, and determined to take the opportunities ahead of us. It’s a tough tour, no doubt about it, but if you’re prepared, there’s nothing to be overawed about. We’re out there to win, simple, and that’s our goal. Every decision we’ve made is about us winning the Ashes, and none of us want any regrets at the end of it. We’ll do everything in our capabilities to achieve that goal.”Regardless of the captain’s brave words, the scale of the challenge that awaits England this winter is vast. Since their last series win in Australia in 1986-87, they have played 26 Tests in the country and emerged victorious in a paltry three, none of which have occurred with the Ashes still up for grabs. For the second time in as many tours, they travel Down Under as holders, but such was the provocation that that fact caused last time around, one might hesitate to claim it as an advantage.In fact, in the entire 133-year history of Anglo-Australian rivalry, only two England captains have emerged victorious in consecutive home and away series – Len Hutton in 1953 and 1954-55, and Mike Brearley in 1977 and 1978-79. Michael Vaughan, the most successful Test captain in English history, had just one indelible series at the helm in 2005 before injury struck him down, while Mike Gatting – the last man to win the urn Down Under 24 years ago – had been sacked by the board before the Aussies returned to seek vengeance in 1989.Five England squads have travelled to Australia in the past 20 years – led respectively by Graham Gooch, Mike Atherton, Alec Stewart, Nasser Hussain and ultimately Flintoff – and each and every one has buckled beneath such a weight of history. But as he prepared to embark on the latest campaign, Strauss was visibly eager to shelve the pessimism of the past, and embrace the opportunities that await for him and his team in the coming months.”Potentially this could be one of the greatest winters ever for English cricket, with not just the Ashes but the World Cup as well,” he said. “For us to waltz over there, strut around, and think we are going to dominate would be wrong. But at the same time there is a great, deep, fundamental belief that we can go out there and win, and if we can turn over those previous statistics, then that will highlight the scale of the achievement.”The war of words began in earnest this week, with Kevin Pietersen dismissing the former Australia coach, John Buchanan, as a “nobody” following criticism of his team ethic, while the Aussies landed a PR blow in the small hours of Thursday morning by projecting the faces of Ricky Ponting and Michael Clarke onto the Houses of Parliament, along with the message, “Don’t forget to pack the urn”.Strauss, however, refused to be drawn into any sort of slanging match, much as he and Andy Flower had successfully ducked the barbs of Graeme Smith and Mickey Arthur prior to last winter’s successful tour of South Africa. “If you come out with big comments about the opposition, they tend to come back to haunt you,” he explained. “You can spend hours thinking of witty retorts, or you can spend hours thinking how to beat them. And ultimately actions speak louder than words.”That said, Strauss is fully expecting to come in for his fair share of flak from the Australian crowd, whom one journalist suggested might see in his posh, public-school demeanour shades of the legendary Douglas Jardine – not least if he actually sets out to win. “I’m not going to try and hide it,” he responded. “You’ve just got to roll with it. Ponting was the pantomime villain in England last summer, and that may be the same for me over there. The Ashes is a healthy and serious rivalry, but generally it doesn’t spill over.”With three first-class warm-up games leading into the Brisbane Test on November 25, Strauss conceded that there would be “no excuses” for any lack of preparation, not least because he and Flower have settled on the hard-nosed (but hard-to-argue-with) decision to exclude wives and families from the critical early stages of the tour. Without harking back unduly to the bitter experiences of four years ago, Strauss conceded that lessons had been learned from that ignominious campaign, not least the need for total focus on the task at hand.”A lot of the players weren’t involved back then, but the ones who were know how tough it is out there, and [they know] the type of cricket you need to play if you want to win out there,” he said. “There were some lessons learnt about preparation, and how best to hit the ground running out there, and hopefully we’ll acquit ourselves better.”Until the end of the fifth Test we are two sides at war with each other,” he added, a statement that implied there would be no repetition of the scenes at Adelaide four years ago, when Flintoff and Steve Harmison joined in with Australia’s post-match celebrations following their incredible victory in the second Test. “At the end of the series, 11 guys will be feted as heroes and 11 will have failed in their task, so until the final Test is over, there’s no point in being too hunky dory and friendly with the opposition. Our task is to go out there and beat them.””I still maintain, if I’d been captain last time, the result wouldn’t have been any different,” he added. “It was a gradual erosion of confidence over the course of the tour for all of us. They were by far the better side, they had the bit between their teeth, and they outplayed us. But we head over there this time in a very good frame of mind and with realistic chances of winning the series. I’m very honoured and proud to be leading the side in those circumstances.”