Moores defends England's over-rate

James Anderson led England's attack at Lord's with seven wickets before the light closed in © Getty Images

England coach Peter Moores has defended Michael Vaughan's tactics on the final day of the first Test against India after rain forced a draw with India nine down. There has been criticism that England weren't quick enough between overs even though they knew about the poor forecast.

An over-rate of 15 per hour is meant to be maintained in Tests, although this is rarely managed by any team unless two spinners are bowling. During the morning session on Monday England bowled 28 overs and in nearly two sessions before the weather closed in sent down 55, despite 26 overs from Monty Panesar.

However, often Vaughan's meticulous field settings bring results, such as the pressure created by a man at silly mid-on or Wasim Jaffer's clip in the second innings that found Kevin Pietersen at a specially placed midwicket.

"We have to look at the bigger picture," said Moores. "If we're a couple of overs short in a session because the captain has moved the field and it's gone towards getting a wicket then it's great.

"We try to bowl our overs at a good rate and we've shown that we have done that over the summer against teams who sometimes haven't. Over the course of a game we've been able to maintain that without being fined and have done it the right way."

England's inexperienced attack was expected to struggle against a powerful Indian batting line-up. However, James Anderson, Ryan Sidebottom and Chris Tremlett excelled to such an extent that Rahul Dravid, Sachin Tendulkar, Sourav Ganguly and VVS Laxman made a top score of 40 between them.

"At certain stages of the game it sometimes takes time to set things up and get things right and get people in the right places," said Moores. "I thought Michael Vaughan was outstanding in his captaincy and trying to winkle out some of the batsmen who were intent on staying there and trying to save a Test match.

"Could we have saved a minute here or 30 seconds there, could we have run a bit harder to retrieve that ball? You could go on forever. They key thing for me is that we look at areas and the way we performed and we'll review it like we review everything good and bad because we need to make sure we move forward next time.

"There are arguments either way, but I don't really think it was that influential to the outcome of the match and whether we'd have got another over - it was all about the momentum of the game and we just managed to swing it really strongly towards us before it rained."

As with Vaughan, Moores was fulsome in his praise of the young bowlers who nearly managed to force victory. "As a coach you're always really pleased when people go out there and relax on the big stage and make sure they perform," he said. "We all know they've got to do that over a longer period of time, but it's great because someone like Jimmy, has worked really hard.

"We also saw one man just miss out in Stuart Broad and it would have been good to have a look at that as well. It's exciting times and when people perform as a unit like that it can create the sort of pressure that they did.