MELBOURNE, (Reuters) – Australia seamer Peter Siddle sympathises with England batsman Jonathan Trott, who left the Ashes tour to deal with a stress-related illness, but said his team’s focus was squarely on winning and that they would not be dialling down the intensity.
England’s number three batsman left the tour this week after failing twice with the bat during his team’s 381-run loss in the first test in Brisbane.
Australia batsman David Warner was condemned by England captain Alastair Cook and team director Andy Flower for publicly criticising Trott’s batting, and England paceman Stuart Broad expressed his hopes that the hosts would not use the batsman’s travails as a weapon. When asked whether Trott was an “out-of-bounds” topic in on-field banter, Siddle said yesterday:
“Another thing there is it’s a battle out on the field and we’ll go about it how we think it will work.
“We’ll just keep playing hard cricket. We’ll keep putting the pressure on them. We’ll keep going from there.
“It’s disappointing for him to be going home, I wish him all the best, but we’re going out there trying to win test matches and however we do that we’ll play hard, aggressive cricket and hopefully get the win at the end of the day.”
Trott’s departure after a prolonged struggle for form prompted an outpouring of sympathy from former players but has not curbed Australia’s determination to be aggressive in deed and word out in the middle.
Australia coach Darren Lehmann rejected any suggestion that he and Flower ought to meet before the second test in Adelaide to work out ground rules on sledging and said he was content so long as his players confined it to the field.
