Ashes Tests in Australia or England/Wales

[superkingdave]

We did win there in 86/87 as well

 

[GIMH]

Yeah, bit odd that

 

[Richard]

I prefer to abolish the 4 years 1986-1989 from memory TBH. Not a good time (TSTL) for English cricket (and mostly not a good time for Australian cricket either). Probably a good job I don't actually remember it at all in fact.

Either way, Australia were missing at least 5 players who would have been first-teamers if they'd not been banned due to touring SA with Rebel teams. Almost counts as Australia A in that series as well.

Certainly '70/71 was the last time England won in Australia against a full-strength team. And the only other genuine victories (ie, excluding the Bodyline series) post-WW1 were in 1954/55 and 1928/29 as well.

In short, England have beaten Australia's best team, away, under conventional cricketing circumstances, just 3 times in the last 90 years.

 

[GIMH]

How was Bodyline not genuine?

 

[zaremba]

Richard doesn't like it, and therefore it didn't happen. It's like my one-year-old who closes her eyes when being asked to eat food she doesn't like on the basis that if you ignore it hard enough, it will cease to be real.

see also: "ineducated"

 

[Richard]

Richard doesn't like it

News to me - the Bodyline series is and has and will always remain one of the most fascinating in cricket history, from a cricket and social POV.

But there's no way you can equate it to "normal" cricket. England won via means that no-one had ever considered the unfairness of, and their victory meant it suddenly was considered, and the method was thenceforth outlawed.

Bowling consistently short, leg-side and quickly to 6-7 fielders behind square on the leg is a strategy no-one could hope to have consistent success against. Especially on deadly uneven decks like the Third Test of that series.

 

[zaremba]

Well I for one would have been proud to have worn the Harlequin cap and ordered the pit men to bang it in short against the colonial upstarts.

"If they don't like the heat, Gubby, they can **** off out of the kitchen"

 

[Shaggy Alfresco]

TBH it's been so long I can't even remember the last Ashes series in Australia. When was it? 2003 right?

 

[GIMH]

1986-87

 

[Richard]

TBH it's been so long I can't even remember the last Ashes series in Australia. When was it? 2003 right?

Nah, I told you, it was 1970/71. Before most of us on here were even born.

Since then there've been a large number of series' masquerading as Ashes, which the team masquerading as Australia have won, and there was a series in 1978/79 where England played Australia A and us English lot being the fair types we are don't actually consider that a genuine Ashes. People also tell me there was something in 1986/87 as well, where something happened along the lines of a rat winning the battle against a fieldmouse - so we don't tend to mention that either.

It just ain't like it used to be! The glory days of '70/71 and before can surely never be truly recaptured!

 

[Richard]

Well I for one would have been proud to have worn the Harlequin cap and ordered the pit men to bang it in short against the colonial upstarts.

"If they don't like the heat, Gubby, they can **** off out of the kitchen"

Banging it in short's one thing - any fool can do that and countless have down the years. What made it so realistically impossible to score very often against (unless you took Bradman's risk-heavy strategy of backing away and aiming into the wide spaces on the off) was the strong leg-side fields.

Only un-learned scholars believe Bodyline comprised merely of bowling short, Mr. z, as you well know, having seen these many posts which try to discredit Bradman by saying he was brought down to Earth by mere short-pitched bowling in 1932/33.

 

[Furball]

News to me - the Bodyline series is and has and will always remain one of the most fascinating in cricket history, from a cricket and social POV.

But there's no way you can equate it to "normal" cricket. England won via means that no-one had ever considered the unfairness of, and their victory meant it suddenly was considered, and the method was thenceforth outlawed.

Bowling consistently short, leg-side and quickly to 6-7 fielders behind square on the leg is a strategy no-one could hope to have consistent success against. Especially on deadly uneven decks like the Third Test of that series.

Which is exactly why it was such a genius strategy.

You play to win.

 

[Richard]

That it was genius (in that no-one had thought to deploy it to the extent Jardine did) is not something I'm disputing for a second. That it was highly irregular is equally beyond dispute. Never again would such a strategy be deployed, and rightly so.

Winning is pointless without fair play IMO.

 

[Furball]

That it was genius (in that no-one had thought to deploy it to the extent Jardine did) is not something I'm disputing for a second. That it was highly irregular is equally beyond dispute. Never again would such a strategy be deployed, and rightly so.

Winning is pointless without fair play IMO.

Fair enough, that's where you and I differ.

The rules are there to be worked with, if you can use the rules to your advantage, like Douglas Jardine did, then fair play to you.

 

[oitoitoi]

As a neutral I prefer watching them in England, the matches actually have a semblance of competition....

 

[Richard]

Fair enough, that's where you and I differ.

The rules are there to be worked with, if you can use the rules to your advantage, like Douglas Jardine did, then fair play to you.

The way I see it, sport is what it is because people want to watch it. And by-and-large, one of the first things that is looked for in a sport by the masses is whether it's played fairly. Whenever play is not fair, you can bank on the masses baulking at it. The thing that intrudes on this is that these days, there are such massive short-term payoffs that make the difference between victory and defeat. Long-term damage can be done (ie, turning people off because of unfair play and thus in the long-run decreasing the audience so thus the pay-packet) in favour of short-term gain (ie, a victory and more win-bonuses).

Ergo, victory achieved by foul means is near-worthless to me, and I suspect by many others. Whether Bodyline was in fact fair is something that is still disputed to this day, but that unfair play = worthless victory is I'd say widely agreed on.

 

[GIMH]

NB, prefer the matches in Australia to the ones in Wales

 

[superkingdave]

Yeah, lets never play a neutral test in this hellhole again. Its bad enough we are playing one in France.

 

[dontcloseyoureyes]

Shocked that Crabbage preferred games in England. Who'd have seen that one coming.

 

[pasag]

There's no question it's a million times better when it's where you live. I fondly remember the buzz on the first morning of the Gabba Test in the last series. Had to run a few errands before hand and everywhere I went people were talking about it and you could just feel it in the air. Not to mention the build up in the media - every day for at least three months before there was a front page article on the series in The Age. And obviously I could go to every day of one of the matches with not too much trouble at all.