London: Monty Panesar's omission from the England squad during the Ashes was largely blamed on Duncan Fletcher, but the former coach reveals he was the only one wanting to have the left-armer in the side despite a unanimous vote in favour of Ashley Giles.

"I can state categorically here that I wanted him to play at Adelaide. I wanted to play both spinners: Panesar replacing James Anderson from the first Test lineup," Fletcher writes in his autobiography which is being serialised in the Daily Mail .

"Even before the tour started I had thought that I would like two spinners at Adelaide, at Perth (although that was proved wrong) and Sydney too," he added.

Fletcher recalled that he had made up his mind on playing both Monty and Giles after having a look at the conditions but was out-voted during the management meeting as even skipper Andrew Flintoff favoured Giles.

"We went into our management meeting and every person there, bar me, wanted just one spinner and wanted him to be Giles. This included people like Phil Neale, Mark Garaway, Kevin Shine and Matthew Maynard, all with considerable experience in the game, the first three all having coached county sides," he writes.

"The only person who hinted that he might agree with me was Paul Collingwood, who said: May be we could play two spinners. But that was it," he added.

Source : PTI