Hoggard calls on team to lift

England pace bowler Matthew Hoggard has called on his side to perform or face a series whitewash, the first since 1921.

In the lead up to tomorrow’s Boxing Day Test in Melbourne, Hoggard has told of his pain of losing the Ashes.

“It’s been very upsetting, everyone is gutted at losing the Ashes,” he said. “We wanted to come out here and play to the best of our abilities and I don’t think we’ve done that.”

“We’ve only played four-and-a-half days of good cricket in Adelaide during the series, but Australia are a top side and you don’t stay the top side for some time if you don’t put in some good performances.

“We’ve got to prove to ourselves that we can beat Australia. We’ve shown glimpses of what we can do and we’ve had some good individual performances over the three games, but we haven’t put in a big team performance.”

Hoggard, who has been far and away England’s best bowler this series, spoke of need to not be afraid of the Australians and that they could be beaten in the 2009 Ashes.

“We need to not get mentally scarred, saying Australia are unbeatable, because it’s going to be a different story in 2009, and different personnel.”

Hoggard has taken 12 wickets for the series so far at an average of 33.66.