Oz players must counter criticism with performance: Nielsen

SYDNEY - Australia’s coach Tim Nielsen has asked his players not to hide from criticism, but counter it by performing.

“We are 1-0 down in the series, and it seems like the world will cave in. That is, if you happen to pick up any of the media publications currently dissecting how and why we are getting beaten and the million reasons we don’t have any chance of winning back the Ashes,” he wrote in his blog on Cricket Australia’s website, published yesterday.

“However, I can promise you there is a very different feeling inside the Australian cricket team’s dressing shed. ‘For all the doom and gloom being published around Australia and the world at the minute, the great thing about the game of cricket is how quickly it can turn around,” he wrote.

Nielsen said the criticism following Australia’s innings and 71-run loss in the second Test in Adelaide was warranted, The Sydney Morning Herald reports.As difficult as it is to cop, there is good reason for the written articles and criticism of our team. Getting beaten by an innings in Adelaide opens all of us to questions, and the questions need to be answered by our group as soon as the Perth Test commences,” he said.

“When under pressure, it is easy to forget we are the luckiest people in the world; working in the game we love, representing our country … while the last few days have been tough, it shouldn’t be something that we run away from,” he said.

Nielsen urged his players to digest a quote from former American football coach Lou Holtz that “life is 10 per cent what happens to you and 90 per cent how you respond to it.”

‘The time is here for us to take that mantra and respond in a fashion that ensures we are in the contest every second of the five days,” he wrote. (ANI)