MELBOURNE, March 15: England’s cricket team have taken a big step back since the Ashes, says former West Indies captain Sir Viv Richards. He warned England had no right to call themselves a great team until they beat both Pakistan and India away from home. “It’s all well and good winning a series at home against the best in the world as they did in the Ashes.

“But you only become great when the odds are really stacked against you and you come out on top,” said Richards, is at the Commonwealth Games in Melbourne as Antigua and Barbuda team ambassador. “As it stands, England have gone backwards quite a bit since the summer.”

England go into final Test of series against India in Mumbai on Saturday 1-0 down. Should they fail to win third Test, it will be their second successive series defeat having come off second best to Pakistan last year.

Richards, who captained West Indies to 27 Test victories in seven years as captain, said “I remember India and Pakistan were really hard places to tour — hardest in the game in fact.”

“It’s not just that their teams are so hard to beat; conditions are tough and generally most of the team are ill. When you overcome that — what I like to call beating a bad dog in his backyard — only then do you become real world beaters.”

Despite series deficit, Richards believes England have one major factor which could level series. He likened stand-in captain Andrew Flintoff to Ian Botham, his former team-mate with Somerset and a close friend.

“I’ve been watching Freddie on TV and he sounds really pumped up. It’s a really tough ask to win but I wouldn’t put anything past him.

“He’s a really magnificent player and, at times, it’s like a mirror of Ian Botham. I always felt Freddie had really underachieved but now he’s superb in every game. He’s aggressive player England have missed for so many years.

“When he and Kevin Pietersen are at crease, it kind of reminds me of West Indies when we were at our peak. Sadly we’re not quite force we once were — though we do show occasional promise -– and we’d do well to follow aggression and fight of those two for future series.”—Agencies