Bailey wants team to take fresh guard for Ashes

London: Australian skipper George Bailey is not brooding over his team’s poor show in the Champions Trophy and has already turned his attention to the Ashes series.

Despite being unable to qualify for the semi-finals, Bailey says that his team will have to make a few adjustments going from a One-day series to Test series against England.

“There is probably not a great deal of confidence there. But it’s just a very different mindset, I think, going from a One-day tournament to a Test tournament. I don’t think it matters where the sides have been ranked going forward or in the past. The Ashes just tends to bring out something special in both sides.

“Whatever can be written and said leading up to those games, until that first Test and the result of that first Test, I think that will dictate how the summer plays out. I think there is a huge importance in the results of the first couple of Tests.”

Bailey wants every player to start fresh for the Ashes series: “All of these guys will have to put this tournament behind them whether they’ve scored runs or not and just focus on going forward. It’s no different for an Australian player or any other international player. Everyone has form slumps, everyone has their ups and downs.

“As a team, I think there is a really big challenge that’s going to be ahead of them in the next couple of months. I think what Australia have done this time is they’ve got a really good preparation. Couple of games against Counties. I think a couple of the guys, the batters from this group, will maybe even join up and play the Australia A game that’s due to start later this week.”

When asked if he hoped that the last wicket partnership between Xavier Doherty and Clint McKay could have won the game against Sri Lanka, Bailey said: “It was great to see those guys battle it out, and it would have been really nice to get a win and get over the line there, but unfortunately, that was not to be.

“It was a bit of a hard one. Once the 29 overs had ticked over, our steam went out of it a little bit; resigned to the fact that the tournament was over for us. But there is a lot of pride.

“There is a lot of pride between a lot of competition between Xavier Doherty and Clint McKay; they both think they should be batting number 10. There was a lot on the line today. We said whoever could finish not out might get the number 10 role going forward.”

How does Bailey feel about his team’s performance in the tournament?

“As I said before in this tournament you need to start well. You must dictate terms. The weather also played its part. I’d say there was a little bit of bad luck.”