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The idea that defeat would be acceptable as long as we gave it a go never got anywhere near any team I played inDuring the summer, as the Test side being reshaped by Ben Stokes and Brendon McCullum found immediate success on home soil, there was very much a feeling among knowledgeable cricket people that come their first trip abroad conditions in Pakistan would present much more of a challenge. But this team continues to write their own script, ignoring the conventions of the game, and even the flattest of pitches in Rawalpindi could not restrain them.I have never seen such total alignment between a head coach, his captain, and the managing director, Rob Key, who selected them. I think back over my international career, when it was an inviolable rule that individual players were given ownership of their game – they had been picked for their country and there was a prevailing view that you had reached the pinnacle of the game and it was not for someone else to tell you how to go out and play. I always admired the way Alec Stewart and Graham Thorpe took the aggressive option if they could, particularly when players took that approach and it didn’t come off they were guaranteed to be hammered in the media. Continue reading...