Chris Silverwood: "There are positives coming out of this"

England's head coach praised his bowling attack for their resilience on day two while also insisting he retains the support of his players

Chris Silverwood believes "there are positives" to take from England’s abysmal surrendering of the Ashes at the MCG.

After being skittled for just 185 on day one of the third Test, England’s bowlers fought back valiantly on day two to dismiss Australia for 267, with Jimmy Anderson rolling back the years to take 4 for 33 – his self-confessed best performance in Australia since 2010.

Unfortunately, a dreadful final hour followed which saw England close on 31 for 4 and when play resumed on day three, Australia needed just 80 minutes to finish the kill, dismissing England for 68 to win by an innings and 14 runs and, more importantly, retain the urn.

However, when speaking to BT Sport after the match, Silverwood was full of praise for both his and Australia’s bowlers.

"Yesterday I think the way the guys came back and applied themselves in the field, the way the bowling attack rallied and got us back into a position where we were back into this game was a credit to them," he said. "There are positives to come out of this and I’ve got to give our boys credit for that. They pushed back yesterday.

"I’ve got to give credit to the Australian attack, especially [Scott] Boland, making his debut, to bowl as well as he did in the second innings. And you look at the opening pair, [Pat] Cummins and [Mitchell] Starc, they’re world class."

England’s latest display means they have been bowled out for under 200 runs in four of their past six innings and lost nine of their past 12 Test matches, prompting questions about Silverwood’s suitability for the head coach position.

His four changes for the Melbourne Test – Jonny Bairstow, Zak Crawley, Jack Leach and Mark Wood replacing Ollie Pope, Rory Burns, Stuart Broad and Chris Woakes – made no difference to England’s performance but he insists he knows his best XI and retains the support of his players.

"I think they are, yes," he replied when asked if the players are still responding to him. "We had a good honest chat after the last one [Adelaide].

"After the first two Tests we had to make a change. We had to do something positive and put new personnel within that batting line-up to try and create something different. That’s exactly what we did. We know we’ve got good people to come in, so that’s why we followed the line we did.”

And as for the final two Tests, Silverwood is not giving up hope despite the urn now being out of reach: "We have to find a way of competing, we have to find a way of scoring runs and pushing back against them.

"We want to take something away from this series and we want to come back and compete in the next two matches."

Our coverage of the Ashes is brought to you in association with Cricket 22

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