da cassino： Australia have been boosted by the return to fitness of their first choice team ahead of Thursday’s Second npower Test at Lord’s
da betsson： CricInfo17-Jul-2001Australia have been boosted by the return to fitness of their first choice team ahead of Thursday’s Second npower Test at Lord’s.Brett Lee, Michael Slater and Matthew Hayden all came through a challenging two hour fitness session and have declared themselves available for selection”Everybody’s come through with flying colours,” coach John Buchanan revealed. “At this stage all are available for selection.”Lee should be 100% by the time the game comes around. Hayden was probably the one causing a little bit of concern. He seems to have come through it pretty well.”It’s important that we have got all players fit and available, which has made the selectors’ job a little bit easier.”Australia’s main consideration will be whether to replace Lee, who may still lack match practise as he returns from a lengthy lay-off, with Damien Fleming. Fleming looks to be ideally suited to English conditions, as demonstrated by his eight wickets in the tourists’ victory over Somerset.”Fleming is in good form as he showed at Somerset, as are one or two batsmen, notably Justin Langer," agreed Buchanan. “So it’s important they keep pushing hard for selection in case of injury of loss of form.”We are happy to maintain a winning momentum, as we were able to do at Somerset. We are treating this as a special game and it’s a Lord’s Test match, which Australia traditionally looks forward to. “Australia expect a more determined England to meet them at Lord’s, and Buchanan admitted that the hosts’ team would be strengthened by the return from injury of several players.”I would expect England will be playing probably better cricket than what they played at Edgbaston,” he continued.”With Ramprakash and potentially Thorpe in, and Silverwood being included, I see a more resilient sort of England side and obviously one-down in the series it’s very important for them to make it 1-1.”Thorpe is a left-hander so potentially he has the capacity to play our bowlers a little more comfortably than some. He’s got a good record. The only down side for him obviously is lack of playing.”Not only is it a step up just to play in first-class cricket, but it is a step up into playing Test match cricket when you haven’t played for a while. “Thorpe declared himself happy with his fitness, however, and stressed his desire to return to action.”I’m quite happy with my state of mind to say ‘let’s get on with it, let’s get back in there’. That’s my way of thinking.”I don’t really want to worry too much about the fact I haven’t played because if you do think about it too much, you tie yourself in knots and that’s not really the way I’ve approached my cricket, not over the last year anyway. I’m looking forward and I’m going to enjoy the game.”It’s responded [his calf] very well, that’s good and positive from my point of view. It feels fine, the workload I’ve put on it hasn’t hindered me at all. I’m at the stage where I’m not even thinking about it, and that’s a good sign.”I don’t feel under any pressure at all. From my personal point of view getting the injury right was the most important thing.”But Thorpe was keen not to be portrayed as the saviour of the England team and reiterated the view that the team as a whole will have to improve markedly on the Edgbaston performance if they are to come back in the series.”I’m certainly not the saviour, the whole performance has to be a lot better for us to challenge these guys.”It’s frustrating when the team is not winning, but I’m not putting any pressure on myself,” he continued. “I’ll just try to come back and contribute well for the side and enjoy the game.”We’ve got to try to find the level of consistency which we did have for 18 months. We wouldn’t have won those four series without playing good consistent cricket. That’s what the England team want to re-discover.”
