5-0 Ashes Whitewash

embarrassing.

 

Cookey doing well.

 

I've been concerned for a while. If you look at the last Ashes tour down under, we massively overperformed and that was the convicts lowest point as a shambles of a team.

We've struggled against an average kiwi side home and away, looked unconvincing against many other teams, were outclassed by SA on our shores and aside from a flattering 3-0 in the summer, only the 4-0 against a weak willed India and 2-1 comeback on their shores have stood out.

Most worryingly though, from the Oval test, our selection has been poor. Whats the point picking a squad of tall fast bowlers for bouncy pitches if you aren't going to pick them? Or middle order batsmen who get runs to then stick with an average all rounder?

The plans seem to be flaky when bowling and the batting has been awful this tour. But we hardly had any prep and I blame the schedule for that. I suspected the convicts would be up for it and that we'd be complacent.

We've also not had a great rub of the green chances wise and dropped some easy ones too. But we're losing badly to a poor team.

I think it's best we forgot about this tour (like 2006/7) and focus on proper team selection and balance for the summer series against Sri Lanka and India.

 

Whose idea was it to have back to back Ashes anyway? Totally devalues the achievement in the Summer. Have the Ashes for a few months and then hand them back.

 

next world cup is down under, not sure if either wanted that battle then straight into the tournament

 

Not even bothered about cricket but I agree. Probably the TV companies, it's a money spinner, but every 18 months would be better

 

just looked and our 1st world cup game is feb 14th 2015 v's........australia!

 

The test cricket fixture list needs an overhaul. They should play all the other countries an equal amount of times home and away over a period. It seems to be forever between playing some countries but we play others all the time, particularly the crims. I think this change was done so that it won't ever clash with the world cup.

 

It happened like this last time we played in Australia - the home series was either 6 months earlier or later. That might have been down to a World Cup as well, i don't know.

 

to be fair, we play oz the same just about the amount of times we always have, this 1 a year earlier thats all, and thats down to the world cup,
personally i find it interesting how the change in power shifted in such a short time, most thought after we won 3-0 this summer it'd be a walk over, but you could see they were better than a 0-3 suggested and it flattered us, we were mainly poor that series but our bowlers did well and usually got a batter to play a good innings to win it, this time broad apart, we are woeful and can see a 4-1 or 5-0 score

 

How can everyone play the same.

You can't have all the teams playing the same amount of games against the teams.

Have you seen the attendances of New Zealand against West Indies or Pakistan?

England play a lot of test cricket. But thats because everyone wants to play England.
I think England should play 3 max home 5 match test series. Australia India SA.
We don't want to be playing Bangladesh or West Indies in a 5 match series at Home. That would be crazy.

Test Cricket is pretty good for England at the minutes.

As for the above, we got lucky to beat Australia and India but we were rubbish when we play SA and Australia this Winter. Madness.

They tried to prepare well for this series. Its secret what they did before it but Micheal Vaughan mentioned training with SAS in a piece hes done. They've had fitness testing and workouts between the series. Mental testing. what ever that food prep they sent over. Got two numbers going through my head, 40 page or 80 page.

Things haven't turned out like England would have liked. It's chicken and egg. Put the foot down when we are on top/ take catches ect...... bat longer and score runs meaning you keep them in the field

People can say what they want and theres always some who seem to thrive when there teams not doing very well and it annoys me.

Lets hope things can go good for the rest of this series, and learn from the and look to regroup for the next tests in the summer.

Englands rise to number one came from a series in the West indies when Strauss was captain and they made so many mistakes but Flower and Strauss have said they got a lot out of losing in WI and lets hope this team can do the same.

The future looks good for England Cricket especially test cricket.

 

The 3-0 flattered England because weren't Australia well in command of the 2 that were drawn due to the weather?

 

100% correct

 

The last games was never in Aussies hands, it was either a draw or England win. England were two overs away from winning that game.

 

we always play a short series against the so called lesser teams before a full series against a top team, it would be financial suicide to play 7 or 8 tests v's bangladesh and new zealand in a summer, we don't even play sri lanka 5 times and they can mix it with best,
eng v aus is the golden goose in cricket and its only 10 matches every 4 years

 

the could easily call on 2 games they could/should have won,
we did deserve to win, but it was never 3-0, you could see we were on our way down

and the last game was all down to michael clarke for allowing us to try and win to try and entertain the fans

 

They can all play each other in a fairer way than now. Why shouldn't we play everyone? Because of attendances at NZ v WI? You've lost me.

 

So you want England to play NZ in the same amount of matches as they play Australia. Then you want NZ to play WI in the same amount of matches England play Aussie?

Because England DO play everyone every 4 years which is the cycle apart from Zimbabwe which is quite clear for the reasons.

 

Not wrong. Painful at the moment. Worst Aussie team in years and giving us a proper hiding. Think the lack of quality in world cricket overall has made us a bit complacent, and it's not been helped by having so many players out of form at the same time, but it's still cringeworthy.

 

This isn't a bad team Gaz.
Lack of talent, You not seen the South African team or Indian or Pakistan Australia all have some really excellent along with England.

New Zeland had some good players too.

At the moment every team as 4/5 really good players.

India have some special talent though.
sachin tendulkar excellent player but he went before been pushed.