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The Ashes 2013/14


billy2shots
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No, don't agree with that. I don't think this last test is representative of our team - nor perhaps the last one. We got spanked in Oz after the 2005 Ashes and then went on to be number one. That was 5-0 too - how different is the team from then? About 50% of the players in that squad for England then went on to become number (where is the hashtag on a MBP?) 1 in the world. 40% of those players are in the current test.

 

Something is amiss.

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Quite - I maintain there must be more to it behind the scenes. I also maintain that our batting line up is top class - you just can't argue against that. One swallow doesn't make a summer,

I can disagree with that.

Our batting was carp at home alway relying on Bell to bail out and is now utter carp here

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I just made the mistake of going over the SA 2012 home test stats. SA 637/2 declared ... oh how the mind forgets ... ! You can't blame me for trying to see some positives - I'm even thinking of catching the first hour later!

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1. The aggregate score of all of England's first innings in this series is 969. The aggregate first-innings score of Australia's last five batsmen - its not-batsmen, in other words - is 1,071.

2. Five times England's top five batsmen have been out for a combined total of fewer than 20 runs.

3. When England are bowled out sometime in the next day and a half, as they certainly will be, it will be the first time in a five-match Ashes series they have lost all 100 wickets.

 

:angry:

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Cook is infuriating.  His interview is unacceptable in my view.

 

Sorry for the loss, let the fans down blah blah - but what is with his smiles and grins?  He has done this in the last two.  He is insincere and appears to not care.  I'm sure that's not true, but that's how he is coming across now.  He is pissing me off immensely.

 

Flowers might keep his job (Collier has said he will anyway) but they're also saying Cook will retain the captaincy.  I just don't see how he can.  He has presided over the worst ever Ashes defeat in my opinion.  Complete humiliation by nothing more than a very average Australian side. 

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If you have watched his latest one, he grins and smiles at various points. 

 

The words are just that.  Words.  They're said with no meaning, emotion or real regret.  He's absolutely full of shite. 

 

"Back to basics"

 

I could scream at him.  Why not just do the right thing and offer your resignation?  I cannot see how anyone can survive this as Captain.

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I'm still of the view that there is a dimension to this we don't yet know about. I refuse to believe that what we have seen in the middle is the full story.

 

Whatever that is, it's the responsibility of tour management, coaches and captain to manage it, contain it or get rid of it. Something they have singularly failed to do. Time for change in my view. Flowers has had a decent run, and Cook needs to concentrate on his batting (he's still potentially the best batsman in the world) to rescue his own career.

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I am surprised Boycott hasn't had a heart attack at such an international team playing like a village team.  Where's Piers?  He put more resistance up to Lee than this team did.

 

The stats say it all - only 1 hundred by an Enlgishman in all 5 tests.  Pitiful.  Only about 5 or 6 50's too.  Most common score - 0.

Edited by cruiser647
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I am surprised Boycott hasn't had a heart attack at such an international team playing like a village team.

 

That's a bit of an insult to the village team....  :P

 

Normally you hear people say you cannot win a match unless you can take 20 wickets.  However 20 wickets are pointless if you give away your own 20

 

I still miss the Cook Strauss and Trott opening trio. Last time down under in 2010-2011 England commenced seven innings, winning the series with scores such as 517/1d, 620/5d, 513, 644.  Cook and Trott scored 766 (NO once) and 445 (NO twice), averages of 127 and 89 respectively, 1221 runs for 11 wickets.

 

2013-2014 England totaled 2158 for 100 wickets.

 

2010-2011 Cook and Trott contributed 216 to the scoreboard on average each innings, compared to a 2013-2014 team average innings of 215/10

 

2013-2014 no English batsman passed 300 in ten innings.  2010-2011 Cook, Strauss, Trott, Pietersen and Bell all passed 300

 

Cricket is a funny old game, as much about form and mindset as its about ability and talent sometimes.  Cook Trott Pietersen and Bell sadly haven't been able to perform this time.  I sincerely hope Trott can make a return - Cook and Trott batting together might not be the most scintillating to watch, but when they are in form they can knuckle down when the square is on their side.

 

Cook has been here before, he was century-less in 2008 and also had a barren spell in 2010 to the extent people were calling for him to be dropped before he bounced back with a century against Pakistan three months before his record breaking Ashes.  With no test matches now until Sri Lanka in June, he will again pass 12 months without a century.

 

Youngsters will get a chance over the next six months of rebuilding, including the players who made a positive debut in the Ashes such as Stokes & Borthwick.  As above, when players like Onions don't even make the squad, bowlers aren't really an issue.  Bowlers who can also bat like Stokes, Borthwick, Broad and Bresnan are also a bonus.  However it should not be down to the lower order to prop up the top order who continually fail time after time

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Would be wrong to suggest new blood should not be introduced against an Australia team?  However 'weak' that team is considered.

 

We all know the Australians put more effort into beating England than any other international team.

 

Nah, especially not in the last two matches when the Ashes where already gone and you are only playing for pride.

 

Great time to give Borthwick a debut after Swann departed when England went 3 down.

 

If Stokes had played all five matches, he would have likely overtaken Pietersen as leading run scorer!!  (279 from four v 294 from five)

 

Regarding bringing Ballance into the side for the last test, mixed views on keeping Carberry over Root.  I can only imagine the selectors were giving Carberry a final test chance, whereas Root - over ten years his junior - surely already has a test future secured?

 

Useless Ashes stat - Nathan Lyon played five tests, six innings, sixty runs, six not out

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It's a mess of competing egos and incompetence that the bumbling fools at the ECB will fail to deal with.

 

This isn't all Flower's fault, far from it, but I can't help thinking there needs to be a whole new regime. Maybe a new structure. And a leadership who can engage with but retain authority over the senior players.

 

And KP needs to decide whether his desire to continue playing overrides his destructive war against authority. It strikes me he's very good at coming over as the faithful England team player in the media but it would seem there's a very different KP in the England dressing room.

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