Former players say time is running out for the current off-field leader.
Former players and English cricket pundits believe current coach Andy Flower might be on borrowed time as he prepares his side for their must-win Test in Perth this week.
With the current holders of the urn having been outplayed in all aspects of the game in Brisbane and Adelaide, time is running out for Flower if he is to retain his position.
Despite no English team ever having comeback from a 2-0 deficit to win a five Test series, talk from the touring camp has been positive this week.
But former skipper Michael Vaughan beleives a series loss might mean Flower is either pushed or sacked.
Transition is the hardest phase to manage,” former skipper Michael Vaughan said.
“You know performance levels and results will dip in the future. It is easy to walk away, particularly as Andy will go down as statistically our greatest coach if he decides to quit at the end of the tour.
“There are whispers that this will be his last tour but I hope not.
“I hope he sees this as a new challenge. I don’t see how someone fresh would do anything better than Flower and his experience.
“Andy is now back where he started in the West Indies in early 2009 when they were blown away in Jamaica.
“He drew a line in the sand and said it all had to change. To become a really good team again, and manage transition, he needs to do the same again.
“This is his second line in the sand moment.”
Alastair Cook has also come under fire for his lack of form with the bat at the top of the order and being out-captained by Michael Clarke in the field.
However, with his side’s backs to the wall in Perth, former English fats bowler Derek Pringle beleives the current side will rise to the occasion.
“There is a theory doing the rounds in the Australian media that Cook has lead a life of seamless upward motion and that this is his first real setback and he does not know how to respond,” Pringle said.
“As a captain they may have a point, though he has only been in the job 14 months, but as a player he was within one Test of being dropped in 2010, a crisis he staved off with a hundred.
“With England woefully short of runs, having been dismissed for fewer than 200 in three of their four innings, a similar response from him would be most welcome.”
The third Test of the series gets underway from Perth with play beginning at 02.30 (GMT) Friday morning.
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