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London: England captain Andrew Strauss made no attempt to hide his feelings after the team saw the chance to whitewash Australia disappear with a 78-run thumping defeat by their old rivals here at The Oval.
The home side went into Wednesday's game an unbeatable 3-0 up in the five-match one-day international series and knowing wins at The Oval, and Lord's on Saturday, would see them completed a coveted clean sweep.
But after Australia's Michael Clarke (99 not out) and Ricky Ponting (92) combined to put on 155 for the third wicket in a total of 290 for five, England were swept aside by a return of five for 32 from pace bowler Ryan Harris.
Mike Yardy's maiden ODI fifty was little consolation and Strauss told reporters: "It is annoying, there's no doubt about that. We didn't get enough things right. "
"It wasn't a secret hope," said Strauss, who'd talked about aiming for 5-0 after the series against the world champions was secured with a tense one-wicket win at Old Trafford last weekend.
We were very hopeful we could do it. What we were trying to focus on was getting it to 4-0, trying not to look too far ahead.
Australia did what you expect them to do; they came back hard at us and put in the better performances.
I think Australia bowled pretty well, but we could have played a lot better than we did.
The introduction of fast bowler Shaun Tait, brought in after off-spinner Nathan Hauritz was ruled out of the tour after the second one-dayer with a foot injury, has boosted Australia's attack.
But Strauss insisted the paceman had not turned the contest on its head. "Obviously, Shaun Tait coming into the series has added a bit more pace on the ball," opening batsman Strauss explained.
"But on the (Oval) wicket, I don't think it was a massive difference whether a guy was bowling at 90mph or 85. It was about being very, very accurate with the ball."
One worry for England is that star batsman Kevin Pietersen has now gone 15 ODI innings without a fifty, although Strauss was not unduly concerned.
"He's always frustrated when he doesn't get runs. But he's a world-class player and he will score runs," Strauss insisted.
"It's as simple as that, so I haven't got any particular worries on that front," he added of the former captain's form.
"I'm sure he'd like to finish this series off in a positive fashion on Saturday. He seems in excellent nick, in the nets, his body language, his work rate. "That's all fine, so I've got no worries about him really.
Looking ahead to Lord's, where he plays county cricket for Middlesex, Strauss said: "We wouldn't want to finish this series 3-2.
We've played a lot of good cricket so far, so we want one more good performance. This performance wasn't good enough, so we need to raise it for Saturday's game.
