It's a hyptothetical dude, it doesn't have to be realistic. Let me clarify what I meant though, because what you and benchmark are saying isn't what I was implying. I meant if you assume the familiar team (with North, Hauritz, Johnson, Siddle, Hilf etc.) is NOT the best team available to Australia (which I think most would agree with), would you rather this team wins the Ashes and remains the primary test team for a long period of time, OR, this team loses the Ashes and changes are made afterwards making it the best team available to Australia (or at least what the majority considers the best team).
I don't see the difference between this post and your original.
Hard to know that though. It's a bit of a stretch to ever say you think losing a series would be good for a team. And as far as Australian/English cricket is concerned, it's almost impossible if that series is the Ashes.
You don't need eleven players performing to win the Ashes though. It could happen on the back of Australia's good players really finding their feet and performing at the peak. It could even happen on the back of a couple of random Marcus North hundreds - wouldn't mean North's the best option carrying forward though, would it?
We are 1-0 behind, for us to win almost everyone has to fire.
I guess it could be framed in another way:
That's a much better question.
Well tbh, it's exactly what I meant in the first place, I probably just didn't word it well enough.
Nope. Potential future benefit never outweighs the immediate downside to losing a Test series. You could say India benefited by losing early at WC '07 and getting rid of Chappell, but that is only with the advantage of hindsight.
It is only a guess that the team will do poorly in the long run, it is far likelier that winning the Ashes could potentially galvanize the same players.
That was my question tbf
That's pretty strange logic though:
Not quite. Yours was based around a genuine belief of future outcomes, which could still be wrong, whereas his actually gave the benefit of hindsight.
My point is you cannot see that far ahead into the future, and things change very quickly in cricket. Nothing breeds confidence like winning. But yeah, if you were to make it a purely hypothetical A vs. B question, then it's an obvious answer.
If only they'd actually take wickets.
At the same time, it would look pretty strange to drop Johnson for bowling crap in the 1st Test, but retain Bollinger, who bowled worse.
