Flower gets it off his chest

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With key all-rounder Andrew Flintoff being examined by knee specialist Andy Williams on Monday and calls for new blood ringing around English cricket following the innings defeat in Leeds, Flower urged a sense of perspective despite his own anger at the performance.

"It is too early to say whether we make changes because it is 10 days until the match starts, we have a selection meeting later in the week," said Flower.

"In between now and that selection meeting we will have a proper think about it and a few discussions.

"We don't respond to calls for change, we make our own decisions and if we did anything but that I don't think we should be in these positions.

"We have to let the dust settle, it's the only sensible thing to do.

"We can come back from this. We have to come back from it. That is the only option available to us. We are not 4-0 down, it is 1-1, and we intend to go to The Oval and play good cricket."

Cases have been built for the inclusion of Robert Key, Mark Ramprakash and Jonathan Trott at The Brit Oval next week with a return of just 16 runs in six visits to the crease by Ravi Bopara, Ian Bell and Paul Collingwood at Headingley.

"It is disappointing," said Flower. "The output from our middle-order, in terms of runs, is simply not good enough.

"We have scored one Test century in four Tests and the opposition has scored seven. That is as clear an indication of what is happening on the batting front as we need."