'We didn’t bat well on one of the flattest Adelaide surfaces’ – James Anderson in bowlers' defense after Joe Root's criticism

Fast bowler James Anderson didn’t mince any words in saying that the England batters underperformed in the second Ashes Test at the Adelaide Oval. The veteran reckoned the Brits failed as a batting unit on a surface that didn’t have much for the bowlers. The Three Lions scored 428 runs, combining both their innings, thereby losing the Day Night Test by 275 runs.

On the same track, the Aussies declared their first innings at 473 for the loss of nine wickets. The 39-year-old mentioned that the pink-ball hardly gave troubles to the batters under the floodlights. Anderson’s comments came after England Test skipper Joe Root slammed the bowlers for not bowling fuller-length deliveries as per the need of the hour.

We have to be a bit more proactive, says James Anderson

“We did not bat well enough on a pitch where the data said it was one of the flattest Adelaide surfaces ever produced and the pink ball did the least it has ever done in a day-night game,” Anderson wrote in his column for The Telegraph.

Anderson, while admitting the bowlers could have bowled a tad fuller, said that they tried their hearts out to get the batters out. He also talked about the importance of being pro-active in order to stay one step ahead of the opposition.

“From a bowlers’ point of view, you want to be hitting the right lengths all the time. We did our best on the first two days to do that … Maybe we could have gone a touch fuller at times but we still created quite a few changes that were not taken,” he stated.

“We have to be better at assessing it during a game. We can’t just go after the game, ‘we should have bowled fuller’… We have to be a bit more proactive at that too as a whole group,” Anderson added.

Having lost both their Tests in Brisbane and Adelaide, the visitors are 0-2 down in the five-match series. The third Test is set to start on Sunday, December 26 at the Melbourne Cricket Ground. Root has also come under fire for being able to lead the national team with precision.