Saddened! wrote:
I don't like the way the players are talking after that test. Saying the Ashes have been 'won' when in fact they haven't yet. 2-2 in the series would be a poor, poor outcome given the dominance they have enjoyed for large parts of the series.
I really hope they don't waste the opportunity to make it 3-1 and a comprehensive series win. 2-2 wouldn't be a fair reflection of things.
Really? First Test, the Aussies get a 260 odd run lead in the first innings and force us to bat for two days to save the game. We do, which is good credit to us.
Second Test great performance, innings win, comprehensive victory to us.
Third Test Aussies smashed us, twice out for less than 200. Up there with many of the other Ashes humiliations we have suffered.
Fourth Test great performance, dominant win and we smash them.
What if the Aussies smash us in the Fifth like they did the Third? They will deserve 2-2.
We need really to turn the screw and not let their 'new era' get off to a good start, like we did in 1987 when the start of the Aussie long climb to the top of the tree probably began with their final Test win over us in Sydney, soon to be followed by a win in the World Cup final.
I don't think that there has been as much of a gap as people have thought. I think if the Aussies still had one of McGrath or Warne, then it would have been a very tight series, they would have won the First test if they'd had Warne. I think if they still had both McGrath and Warne I would have fancied them to beat us. But then I also think if you had taken Warne and McGrath out of their all conquering side of the past few tours, then the Atherton/Stewart or Hussain led England sides would have recorded a few more wins against the Aussies.
It's good to beat the Aussies but we need to be careful that we don't get overexcited and start proclaiming a new era of dominance beckons for England. What we have is a side of good players, which is run very professionally by Flower and Strauss, we don't have a team of great players and I fear that we lack the penetration of a bowler like Flintoff or Gough.
Look beyond this team at the state of English cricket and it is not a happy tale. The quality of county cricketers IMO has slipped backwards since the 1980s and 1990s. The counties are full of South Africans on Kolpak rulings because there just isn't the talent available in England. I know people make jokes about Pietersen and Trott being South Africans, but its true, take them out and say how many English batsmen are there of genuine quality? The best two are not realistic Test options, Trescothick and Ramprakash, so you are left with basically Bell, Strauss, Cook and when he is in form Collingwood. They are good players but it's not as though there are loads of young guns knocking on the door. English cricket at the top end is being run very well at the moment but below that there are problems.
I know people don't like talk of RU on here but I remember hearing some doomsdayers in the press saying this after England won the World Cup in 2003, and they got drowned out as spoilsports, but once the big guns retired English RU went into a low ebb. I fear that below the surface of this, English cricket has got jack all.
