Aussies must forget the Ashes: Clarke
Sydney: Ailing Australia need to forget about the upcoming Ashes series and concentrate on getting back to their best form in the one-day series against Sri Lanka, according to vice captain Michael Clarke.
Clarke stood in for skipper Ricky Ponting in the first of three matches against Sri Lanka at the Melbourne Cricket Ground Wednesday, when a record ninth wicket stand helped the tourists fight back to claim a remarkable victory by one wicket.
"The Ashes is great, everybody's looking forward to it but we need to be focussed on what's in front of us because right now, we're not playing our best cricket and we need to be," Clarke told the Cricket Australia website.
"To lose a game from that position is very disappointing. What hurts the most is it's not the first time it's happened.
"We got so close again and we couldn't finish the game off, which is an issue we've had for a while now in all three forms of the game.
"If we're good enough to execute our plans and get the top order out, I don't see any reason why we can't do it to the tailenders."
With the England squad already in Western Australia preparing for the start of the first Ashes test in Brisbane on November 25, the defeat did nothing to improve the mood in the increasingly critical Australian media.
"Aussies discover new way to lose," read the headline in Thursday's The Australian newspaper, while the Daily Telegraph had: "Aussie cricketers lose the unlosable."
"Once again Australia could not polish off a wounded opponent," English columnist Peter Roebuck wrote in the Sydney Morning Herald.
"To lose a game from that position is very disappointing. What hurts the most is it's not the first time it's happened.
"We got so close again and we couldn't finish the game off, which is an issue we've had for a while now in all three forms of the game.
"If we're good enough to execute our plans and get the top order out, I don't see any reason why we can't do it to the tailenders."
With the England squad already in Western Australia preparing for the start of the first Ashes test in Brisbane on November 25, the defeat did nothing to improve the mood in the increasingly critical Australian media.
"Aussies discover new way to lose," read the headline in Thursday's The Australian newspaper, while the Daily Telegraph had: "Aussie cricketers lose the unlosable."
"Once again Australia could not polish off a wounded opponent," English columnist Peter Roebuck wrote in the Sydney Morning Herald.
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