Alastair Cook accused England of falling short on all three fronts in their humbling 405-run second Ashes Test defeat to Australia at Lord’s.
Having taken a 1-0 lead in the series with a convincing victory in Cardiff, England descended to an embarrassing loss inside four days as Australia levelled the series.
The hosts, set 509 to win after Australia declared on 254 for two shortly before lunch on Sunday, were all out for a hapless 103 in 37 overs by late afternoon.
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Cook bemoaned his side’s failure to build on their performance in the first Test and claimed complacency had seeped into the fundamental areas of bowling, batting and fielding.
He told Sky Sports: “With the standard we set ourselves in Cardiff, the way we played for four days there, to not back it up – it’s incredibly frustrating.
“Hats off to Australia for the way they bounced back. They put us under a lot of pressure all game and we weren’t able to deal with it.
“In Cardiff we did a lot of things very well but here we didn’t do things well at all. We didn’t bowl with the same control as we did there, we didn’t take the catches we did in Cardiff and we didn’t get big hundreds. All three aspects of the game in which you have to do well, we didn’t.”
Mitchell Marsh, who was called up after the loss in Cardiff in place of Shane Watson, removed Cook and Ben Stokes in the first innings before taking Gary Ballance’s wicket yesterday, said he was surprised by the manner of the win.
“We always hope that things like that can happen but we came out expecting it to be a hard fight,” he said.
“ To get a win like that was just fantastic. Obviously as a whole group we were really wanting to bounce back after that first Test so it was certainly nice to win like that.
“I never really thought I’d play at Lord’s, let alone win an Ashes Test, so here we are and it’s been great fun.”
“I couldn’t have asked for a better performance,” said Australia captain Michael Clarke.
“The intent from our batsmen through the second innings was great and the execution from the bowlers was spot on.”
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