fabricflowers

In coming to praise South Africa yesterday, Andy Flower was careful to champion England. After a week in which he has had time to marshal his thoughts while spending a few days away with his family, England's coach neither sought to disguise the heaviness of the defeat in the first Test nor to diminish his team's chances of coming back in the series.

They outplayed us and they played outstanding cricket and deserved to win the game obviously," he said yesterday. "We didn't. We fought hard but we weren't good enough for that Test. We get another opportunity on Thursday.We get ourselves into the right frame of mind by doing the same things that we've been doing very well of the last couple of years. I have every confidence in our players that we can come back and play good cricket."

The second Test, starting at Headingley tomorrow, promises to be a belter. England will have several points to prove, feeling as beaten teams usually do that they are being unfairly criticised, and South Africa, cautious not to overstate their case, are in pre-eminent nick.After a period of reflection, Flower applied the sort of level-headed earnestness which has served him and his charges so well until recently. He was reluctant to speak of the defeat in its immediate aftermath, perhaps because it was so overwhelming and when he broke his silence yesterday he was not of a mind exactly to unburden his soul.

Although England, still the world's No 1 team according to the ICC rankings, have lost five of their last nine matches including a 3-0 series defeat to Pakistan in the UAE, Flower sees no cause for either panic or change.