• England again fail to finish off after decent start
• Saker refuses to blame heat for horror show
David Saker is fiercely loyal to his battery of England seam bowlers, and rightly proud of the part they have played in the team's recent successes. So it was a measure of his dismay at their performance on the first day, and their culpability for allowing Australia to wriggle off the hook for the third time in as many Tests, that he offered strong public criticism.
"There's some disappointed bowlers in there, there's a disappointed bowling coach right now," said the Australian, who could not have looked or sounded any more deflated if had sent down 20 overs himself in heat that peaked at 43C.
"No doubt we let it slip. It's probably not the first time this series as well we've had them on the ropes to a degree and we haven't finished the job. Credit to them the way they've played with that, but we didn't deliver what we should have delivered.
"We pride ourselves on being able to hold lengths and hold good areas and bring the batsmen forward and always making it hard for the opposition to score. It's always harder in Perth to stop teams scoring because it is quite a fast outfield and a good place to play your shots. But we just found it really hard to do that … we just didn't get it right.
"Yeah, it's disappointing that we can't finish teams off. We've usually got a very good record of doing [that]. Mitchell Johnson's played particularly well and Brad Haddin's played particularly well. We're just getting them to the crease and they're hanging in there or counter-punching.
"But we mixed our lengths. Once we had them in a bit of trouble we went to the short ball too much, we couldn't hold our lengths for long enough to put good pressure on. We know that, we're not going to shy away from that.
"The disappointing thing is we did chase wickets and that's probably one of the first times we've done that as a group for as long as that since I've been in charge. There is a degree that maybe it is the situation of the Test series. I hope it's not."
He refused to use the heat as any sort of excuse. "There's no doubt that it's tough. But you prepare yourself to play Test cricket all around the world. We've played in conditions like this if not worse before and acquitted ourselves really well. There's no way we can blame the weather. There's five days of cricket here, it's going to be hot every day, we've got the chance when we bat to keep the Australians out there for as long as we can."
Saker defended the decision to select Tim Bresnan as England's third specialist seamer ahead of Boyd Rankin, Steve Finn or most likely Chris Tremlett, the three beanpoles whose inclusion in the Ashes squad was seen by many as perfect for Perth. "When Bresnan's in our team we always seem to be a really well-balanced team and we always seem to get really good results," added the bowling coach.
"We thought that the balance of the team would be best with Tim Bresnan in. If we then bring in another tall bowler to have another quick we probably leave ourselves short somewhere else. Yes, it probably is an ideal place to have one of the taller bowlers but we thought the best balance of the team was Tim Bresnan."
He conceded that Jimmy Anderson's lack of recent Test wickets – he came into this game with 17 in his last six matches, and was wicketless again on the opening day – is a concern, not least to the Lancastrian himself. "We talked about it this week, he said, 'I need to get some wickets'," said Saker.
"But for him and all our bowlers it's about doing what they do really well. Don't go searching for wickets, don't panic, just do what you do really well. Jimmy's a really skilful bowler. The ball hasn't swung as much over here as I thought it would, but I still think he's bowling some good spells without luck. But we probably didn't do that collectively. That's why the scorecard is the way it is."
Australia's centurion Steve Smith agreed that England had "bowled a bit short in patches", and said that the home bowlers were planning to "be a yard fuller".
"We were under a little bit of pressure there, and they were pretty high," he said of the match situation when Brad Haddin joined him with Australia at 143 for five. "This would definitely be right up there for me, getting a century from that position." Reported by guardian.co.uk 15 hours ago.
• Saker refuses to blame heat for horror show
David Saker is fiercely loyal to his battery of England seam bowlers, and rightly proud of the part they have played in the team's recent successes. So it was a measure of his dismay at their performance on the first day, and their culpability for allowing Australia to wriggle off the hook for the third time in as many Tests, that he offered strong public criticism.
"There's some disappointed bowlers in there, there's a disappointed bowling coach right now," said the Australian, who could not have looked or sounded any more deflated if had sent down 20 overs himself in heat that peaked at 43C.
"No doubt we let it slip. It's probably not the first time this series as well we've had them on the ropes to a degree and we haven't finished the job. Credit to them the way they've played with that, but we didn't deliver what we should have delivered.
"We pride ourselves on being able to hold lengths and hold good areas and bring the batsmen forward and always making it hard for the opposition to score. It's always harder in Perth to stop teams scoring because it is quite a fast outfield and a good place to play your shots. But we just found it really hard to do that … we just didn't get it right.
"Yeah, it's disappointing that we can't finish teams off. We've usually got a very good record of doing [that]. Mitchell Johnson's played particularly well and Brad Haddin's played particularly well. We're just getting them to the crease and they're hanging in there or counter-punching.
"But we mixed our lengths. Once we had them in a bit of trouble we went to the short ball too much, we couldn't hold our lengths for long enough to put good pressure on. We know that, we're not going to shy away from that.
"The disappointing thing is we did chase wickets and that's probably one of the first times we've done that as a group for as long as that since I've been in charge. There is a degree that maybe it is the situation of the Test series. I hope it's not."
He refused to use the heat as any sort of excuse. "There's no doubt that it's tough. But you prepare yourself to play Test cricket all around the world. We've played in conditions like this if not worse before and acquitted ourselves really well. There's no way we can blame the weather. There's five days of cricket here, it's going to be hot every day, we've got the chance when we bat to keep the Australians out there for as long as we can."
Saker defended the decision to select Tim Bresnan as England's third specialist seamer ahead of Boyd Rankin, Steve Finn or most likely Chris Tremlett, the three beanpoles whose inclusion in the Ashes squad was seen by many as perfect for Perth. "When Bresnan's in our team we always seem to be a really well-balanced team and we always seem to get really good results," added the bowling coach.
"We thought that the balance of the team would be best with Tim Bresnan in. If we then bring in another tall bowler to have another quick we probably leave ourselves short somewhere else. Yes, it probably is an ideal place to have one of the taller bowlers but we thought the best balance of the team was Tim Bresnan."
He conceded that Jimmy Anderson's lack of recent Test wickets – he came into this game with 17 in his last six matches, and was wicketless again on the opening day – is a concern, not least to the Lancastrian himself. "We talked about it this week, he said, 'I need to get some wickets'," said Saker.
"But for him and all our bowlers it's about doing what they do really well. Don't go searching for wickets, don't panic, just do what you do really well. Jimmy's a really skilful bowler. The ball hasn't swung as much over here as I thought it would, but I still think he's bowling some good spells without luck. But we probably didn't do that collectively. That's why the scorecard is the way it is."
Australia's centurion Steve Smith agreed that England had "bowled a bit short in patches", and said that the home bowlers were planning to "be a yard fuller".
"We were under a little bit of pressure there, and they were pretty high," he said of the match situation when Brad Haddin joined him with Australia at 143 for five. "This would definitely be right up there for me, getting a century from that position." Reported by guardian.co.uk 15 hours ago.