Vaughan puts defeat down to changes

Updated 08.42 Tue Jul 22 2008

Keywords: paul collingwood, andrew flintoff, sport, darren pattinson, england cricket, ryan sidebottom, england, south africa cricket, england v south africa second test, south africa, cricket, michael vaughan

Michael Vaughan hinted the changes made to the team affected England's performance in the second Test against South Africa at Headingley.

England narrowly avoided an innings defeat, but they only set the tourists a victory target of nine runs, which they achieved in just seven balls to complete a ten-wicket victory.

"We did not feel as much of a unit this week" - Michael Vaughan

And Vaughan feels the team may not have performed as well as they did in the first Test because Andrew Flintoff and Darren Pattinson came in after six consecutive Tests with the same eleven players.

He said: "There are obviously areas where we can improve, and we hope we can come up with a side that can be better balanced and can beat South Africa at Edgbaston.

"I always have a huge belief in being a unit, having togetherness in Test match cricket and we didn't feel as much of a unit this week as we did last.

"We need to get that buzz back: if we can do that, we can still win the series."

Paul Collingwood was left out of the match to accomodate Flintoff, while Pattinson replaced the injured Ryan Sidebottom.

Vaughan added: "The whole Friday morning unsettled the team. You change the team by two players, have players moving out of position and leave someone like Paul Collingwood out. Of course it has an effect.

"You could see he was very disappointed, and people were disappointed for him.

"But a lot of us are experienced and we still should and could have coped with it better.

"It does look a confused selection - but the selection of one person does not lose you a Test match," said Vaughan. "We lost a Test match because we didn't play well enough."

The England selectors have also attracted criticism for moving wicketkeeper Tim Ambrose to number six in the batting line-up and picking Pattinson even though he has spent most of his life living in Australia and barely knew his team-mates before the match began.

Vaughan said: "Darren has taken a lot of criticism. It's not his fault; he got selected and he turned up and tried his guts out. At times he bowled some good spells.

"I felt sorry for him, because he'd obviously not been in the set-up, around the environment - and didn't know anyone.

"That makes it very, very difficult for him to play.

"One man didn't lose us the Test match; the collective unit lost us the Test match."