London: England wicket keeper Matt Prior says there are obvious straightforward cricketing reasons why we lost and Cook has taken a lot of criticism but he was let down by his players and we have to take that on the chin.
According to Telegraph Prior said that on one level Australia played brilliantly. They bowled with accuracy and pace, we lost wickets in clusters and our batsmen did not cash in when set. You generally lose when that happens.
But you have to look at other reasons why we could not turn the tide. It all goes back to the dressing room and making sure that environment is right and on this tour I think we let it slip a bit, said Matt.
We let a few things slide. They appear trivial issues to those on the outside but they are important when building a team environment.
Little things like wearing the right kit, turning up to meetings on time, not five minutes late.
It is about the respect you have for your team-mates, coach and captain.
In any team you have to have strong values and beliefs, and we need to start again and rediscover those before we can move forward.
And to clarify, I am not talking about particular individuals, I am talking about us letting a few things slide as a whole group.
It has got to the stage now where we have sunk to rock bottom and you say the brutal honesty has to come back.
This tour has been the worst period I have experienced with England but actually it is quite exciting that we can start again.
We can say: “Right this is a clean slate, where do we want to go?”
And it is great that Alastair Cook and Andy Flower want to lead that process.
I believe he is the right man for the job and to take this team forward.
He is hugely motivated to do that. He is a proud man and he was hurting after each defeat.
I have not seen two harder working guys on this trip than Flower and Graham Gooch.
The amount of hours Gooch has put in and the passion he shows for English cricket is an example to everyone.
It has hurt me to see the criticism he has received because that has been caused by our failures.
We are the ones who messed up, not the batting coach.
At the start of these back-to-back Ashes series everyone thought the physical demands would be the toughest to handle, but in fact the mental challenge has been the hardest part.
I do not agree that we were caught by surprise in the first Test by the hostility towards us from the Australia team, crowds and press.
We knew that it was coming. Darren Lehmann had stated they wanted to make Broady cry, and we knew we were stepping in to a hostile environment.
Well done to Broady because he knew he would be the main target but handled it by bowling brilliantly.
It was a lesson to us all and one we can use as we look to bounce back.
Mitchell Johnson bowled brilliantly with aggression, pace and accuracy. It was the accuracy that really took us by surprise.
Everyone talks about a “new brand of cricket” Australia played, but actually they just did to us what we did to them three years ago.
