awtb

[Top_Cat]

Because some people see good figures and think "well the bowler must have deserved them!" The notion of figures flattering a bowler just doesn't seem to be acceptable to some people.

But that didn't happen this time. You're just pathologically incapable of giving any praise to Steve Harmison. We all have our biases and this is one of yours.

Anyway, he wasn't the only bowler who bowled well. Hoggard's initial spell was pretty wayward but once he got through Hayden, he was good. As were Jones and Flintoff.

Fine? You must be kidding. Honestly, I recall very clearly every single Test in England since 1998 and you'd be hard-pressed to find a more seam-friendly deck than that one in that time. It was uneven, bouncy, seaming, the slope exaggerating that seam - everything you could wish for. And the skies were grey virtually all game too.

Pietersen looked comfortable because he batted after McGrath finished his superlative spell (Lee was average, Gillespie diabolical and Warne merely good though without Pietersen's number) and because he played absolutely superbly - I'm still inclined to rank those debut innings' up with his very best.

No disagreement with it being a great knock.

Seriously, that was an incredibly seam-friendly deck and England completely wasted it

You and I saw different games. I didn't see much wrong with the pitch and that one bowler dominated in both first innings' and the other Aussie bowlers rarely looked like taking a wicket suggests there wasn't much wrong with it. Hell, the bloke who actually batted on it (KP) is on the record as saying there wasn't much in the deck for the bowlers other than the slope.

 

[Burgey]

That's something that can never truly be known. That belief ebbed back into England - players and spectators - on that opening morning at Edgbaston, however, should have been very clear to all.

That was the moment the summer begun to go England's way. Not some pipe-opener Twenty20, not Somerset (or more accurately Smith and Jayasuriya) beating them on the postage-stamp-size ground; not them losing to Bangladesh; not the Lord's final tie; not Langer being hit by Harmison as he's been hit by hundreds of other bowlers down the years. But that morning at Edgbaston when Lee, Gillespie and Kasprowicz sprayed it and Trescothick and Strauss collared 'em.

Truth be told, it was the introduction of this outstanding performer:

 

[Son Of Coco]

Well they'd been using the mints for a year or so, so I doubt it TBH. Anyway, I'll leave it at that that attitude would have saved England the Adelaide Test on that last day 99 times out of 100 if not more, and that England could have been as proactive as they wanted in 2005, none of it would have counted if Australia had managed to keep-up the level of performance of Lord's and England had carried-on their diabolical showings there.

Ok, you can leave it at that and I'll leave it as the opposite in most cases.

 

[Son Of Coco]

Truth be told, it was the introduction of this outstanding performer:

 

[zaremba]

AWTB?

Opposite of AWTA

= DWTA surely?

 

[zaremba]

Truth be told, it was the introduction of this outstanding performer:

Or as preferred by Shane Warne:

 

[zaremba]

The England teams that ended-up playing Australia in 1989, 1990/91, 1993, 1994/95, 1998/99, 2001, 2002/03 and 2006/07 had no hope in hell of winning. Australia were just so much better it's untrue. Only in 1997 was it ever really a level playing-field - though things might've been different in 1990/91, 1994/95 and 2001 but for multitudes of injuries.

Hard to believe in hindsight, but England in 1989 began as favourites. Australia had lost the last 2 Ashes series and faced an England team which on paper should at least have fought them every inch of the way, particularly in English conditions.

This is one of the reasons why that series was represented such a significant turning-point in Ashes history.

 

[zaremba]

What England did in 2005 was play better, not more aggressively. Not change the mindset to be more aggressive - they just had better players. Irritates the hell out of me to see people crediting change of mindset for what is in reality simple change of physical talent.

Well from where you were sitting, maybe. But if you listen to what any of the players involved have had to say in discussing this series, you'll hear the aggression issue being stressed as highly important. Now you may not believe it, or you might find some way of writing it off, but it does appear to be accepted as true by those who actually took part.

You are seeking to distinguish between the quality of their play and the aggressiveness of their approach. But how can you confidently make that distinction? Do you not accept that it's possible that the former might be caused or contributed to by the latter? The England players weren't intimidated or even cowed as they had patently been in previous series, and the Australians weren't allowed to settle into their game; thus allowing the English players to perform to their potential, and diminishing the Australians' effectiveness.

I'm not saying that such theories are definitely correct - but they appear to make sense, and I can't see why you can so unhesitatingly reject them.

 

[Richard]

I think the feeling that they were being aggressive undoubtedly helped the England team's mindset. However, I don't accept that it would have made the slightest difference - indeed, been possible - had the usual gap in ability been present.

There's no doubt the bowling, especially of Simon Jones, was all about classical aggression - he bowled plenty of rubbish deliveries in short bursts, but you always felt a wicket-taking ball was just around the corner. And, lo-and-behold, in the two spells where it counted, it was. Flintoff himself was far more aggressive than usual that series, generally seeming to be aiming to take wickets more and be less bothered than usual about containment. Hoggard bowled more or less as he usually did and tasted precious little success in the opening three and decent in the last two. Harmison and Giles were of course pretty ineffective, and even though rose-tinted looking back has created for many people ideas of Harmison doing the usual "force them onto the back foot", the reality at the time was all he did was provide brief relief in the few spells he bowled (Vaughan, of course, realised the weak links and didn't bowl him that much after Lord's). Giles did the same in the first, fourth and fifth Tests.

The batting, however, was allowed to be aggressive, because the Australian seamers were far more wayward than usual. The bowler controls the game, if he's good enough, and it was a case of the Australian bowlers being unable to control the England batsmen, not the England batsmen being too good for the Australian bowlers to contain. If Australia had bowled as they did in 2002/03 (and caught well) England's batsmen would not have had a hope in hell of either dominating or scoring very many.

 

[Richard]

Hard to believe in hindsight, but England in 1989 began as favourites. Australia had lost the last 2 Ashes series and faced an England team which on paper should at least have fought them every inch of the way, particularly in English conditions.

This is one of the reasons why that series was represented such a significant turning-point in Ashes history.

Not hard to believe, if you look carefully - the Australian team of 1989 before the series was utterly poor. It was essentially a three-man team: Boon (who no-one still seemed sure whether was best used at the top or three), star man Border, and dead-Test-bully (who had played one of the greatest innings in history on effective debut) Jones. Of the others:
Marsh had started well but had begun his to-be-terminal fade in the 1988/89 series against West Indies;
Taylor had played 2 wholly unconvincing Tests;
Stephen Waugh had been a just-about-acceptable quality all-rounder for 3 years and no-one was remotely countenancing the possibility of him scoring 485 for once out in the first four Tests;
Healy had played 1 season and while his wicketkeeping was good enough he scored no runs (as he continued to do for another 4 years);
Hughes had been playing for 3 years, had had 1 sensational game and done absolutely nothing besides;
Lawson was only just back, and into his 30s, after the best part of 4 years out of the side, so no-one knew what to expect;
Alderman was only just back, aged nearly 33, after a 4-year ban, and no-one was sure how he was going to go. Turned-out he was sensationally brilliant for a year.

And Campbell and Hohns were clearly pretty nothing bowlers. Not sure who else was in the touring party but I'd bet they weren't all that good.

A lot of players turned the corner together for Australia in 1989 (Taylor, Waugh, Hughes - you could argue Healy), and the return of Alderman and Lawson was huge.

 

[Richard]

= DWTA surely?

AWTB and DWTA are both opposites really. There's no rule saying there can be only one opposite, is there? To give one example - hot and dloc are both the opposite of cold.

 

[Richard]

Truth be told, it was the introduction of this outstanding performer:

Nah, that'd been introduced a while before. At least a year, in fact.

 

[Richard]

But that didn't happen this time. You're just pathologically incapable of giving any praise to Steve Harmison. We all have our biases and this is one of yours.

Nah, I'm not - I don't really do bias. Hate it with a passion. I've praised Harmison on the odd occasion he's bowled well, but that wasn't one of them. Harmison bowled dreadfully and only got wickets at the end of both innings'. He also hit Hayden and Ponting (obviously he hit Langer too, like virtually all self-respecting bowlers have) which looked nice but didn't actually have any practical effect.

Anyway, he wasn't the only bowler who bowled well. Hoggard's initial spell was pretty wayward but once he got through Hayden, he was good. As were Jones and Flintoff.

Hoggard bowled that one decent ball to knock Hayden over and was poor the rest of the game. Jones and Flintoff, well... were far, far below what they'd be for the rest of the summer.

You and I saw different games. I didn't see much wrong with the pitch and that one bowler dominated in both first innings' and the other Aussie bowlers rarely looked like taking a wicket suggests there wasn't much wrong with it. Hell, the bloke who actually batted on it (KP) is on the record as saying there wasn't much in the deck for the bowlers other than the slope.

I don't for a second think the other bowlers barely looked like taking a wicket. Lee threatened all game (I said at the time that he'd never bowled on a wicket anywhere near that friendly in a Test before) and Warne of course was menacing as ever. It was only Gillespie who was poor, and he was poor because some average club second XI bowler had stolen his body for a few months. Gillespie just could not do a thing with the ball that summer, despite being pretty much his usual self either side of it, and it's not much of a surprise he got nothing.

Even Flintoff and Jones sometimes looked good - as well as sometimes looking dreadful and ending-up with diabolical figures (considering the friendliness of the pitch).

I'm telling you, if that match had been Ambrose and Walsh vs Donald and Pollock it'd have been 130ao plays 120ao plays 160ao plays 80ao. I'm flabbergasted anyone'd say there wasn't much in that deck. Truly astonished.

 

[Son Of Coco]

Hard to believe in hindsight, but England in 1989 began as favourites. Australia had lost the last 2 Ashes series and faced an England team which on paper should at least have fought them every inch of the way, particularly in English conditions.

This is one of the reasons why that series was represented such a significant turning-point in Ashes history.

Yeah, the 1989 team was the worst team ever sent to England according to the English press

 

[zaremba]

Not hard to believe, if you look carefully - the Australian team of 1989 before the series was utterly poor. It was essentially a three-man team: Boon (who no-one still seemed sure whether was best used at the top or three), star man Border, and dead-Test-bully (who had played one of the greatest innings in history on effective debut) Jones. Of the others:
Marsh had started well but had begun his to-be-terminal fade in the 1988/89 series against West Indies;
Taylor had played 2 wholly unconvincing Tests;
Stephen Waugh had been a just-about-acceptable quality all-rounder for 3 years and no-one was remotely countenancing the possibility of him scoring 485 for once out in the first four Tests;
Healy had played 1 season and while his wicketkeeping was good enough he scored no runs (as he continued to do for another 4 years);
Hughes had been playing for 3 years, had had 1 sensational game and done absolutely nothing besides;
Lawson was only just back, and into his 30s, after the best part of 4 years out of the side, so no-one knew what to expect;
Alderman was only just back, aged nearly 33, after a 4-year ban, and no-one was sure how he was going to go. Turned-out he was sensationally brilliant for a year.

And Campbell and Hohns were clearly pretty nothing bowlers. Not sure who else was in the touring party but I'd bet they weren't all that good.

A lot of players turned the corner together for Australia in 1989 (Taylor, Waugh, Hughes - you could argue Healy), and the return of Alderman and Lawson was huge.

I agree with almost all of this. Except re Alderman, who was always a pretty safe bet to do well since he had, over the years, had consistent and sustained success playing for Kent. I remember Martin Johnson in the Independent writing words to the effect "I have two predictions: that Terry Alderman will be the most successful Australian bowler, and Merv Hughes will be the most photographed".

 

[Uppercut]

Nah, I'm not - I don't really do bias.

 

[zaremba]

Nah, I'm not - I don't really do bias. Hate it with a passion.

I think you should have a more open-minded view of bias.

 

[Richard]

I don't really blame other people for thinking I do, because they're not me so thus don't fully understand my thought processes. But, no, I don't do bias. I hate it more than most.

No team nor no player has ever caused me to think differently of how well they have performed purely because of which team\player they are. Obviously, I enjoy the success of some players\teams more, but that's different to assessing the calibre of their play.

What some people perceive as bias is in fact simply my "way". It's a result not of prejudicial viewings because of which team someone plays for, but my principles of attacking viewership of the game. This is well-demonstrated by the fact I've been accused, down the years, of bias both in favour of and against players from every single cricketing nation, by ignoramuses who have no clue of my thought processes.

 

[Richard]

Yeah, the 1989 team was the worst team ever sent to England according to the English press

I thought it was the Australian press who dubbed it the worst ever to leave Australian shores?

 

[Richard]

I agree with almost all of this. Except re Alderman, who was always a pretty safe bet to do well since he had, over the years, had consistent and sustained success playing for Kent. I remember Martin Johnson in the Independent writing words to the effect "I have two predictions: that Terry Alderman will be the most successful Australian bowler, and Merv Hughes will be the most photographed".

Even though Alderman had been playing with great success in county cricket and was certainly a decent bet to do well, if someone has been out of Test cricket for 4 years there's just no way of knowing how they're going to respond when they come back aged 33. To have been confident of his success would have been foolhardy; to have had hopes for him to do well would have been realistic.

No-one, however, could remotely possibly have expected him to do as well as he did. His work in 1989 was one of sheer genius. If he could've bowled that well all career he'd have been one of the best bowlers the game has seen. Yes, England were dreadful - at the end of the most wretched 4 years in the history of English cricket - but Alderman was simply magnificent.