England's low run rate

Following on from Raj's comment yesterday that the top order need to average 45 rather than 40 these days, this article also suggests that they need to score quicker (in the case of the England team). I think players need to adapt to the conditions and score at the rate appropriate for them so I'm loathed to make generalisations, but if forced(!) I would agree that England have gone into their shells a little. It's not helped by Vaughan not getting runs recently as he normally scores relatively fluently, and Strauss playing for his place, but we still seem to have a worryingly defensive mentality.

It'll be interesting to see if this changes over the English summer on wickets the England batsman are used to and against a relatively weak New Zealand attack that they now know well.