England v Australia 1985

[Lillian Thomson]

There's quite a bit of footage of this series floating around, but as far as I can tell this is not amongst it. England needed five wickets on the final day and got them before lunch. When the BBC returned after lunch with nothing to show they did a 27 minute round up chat with Peter West, Richie Benaud and Ted Dexter. In those days if the cricket was over early they would usually dig up a pointless 30 year old Tommy Steele film or something equally irrelevant. Anyway I set my VHS recorder (hi tech at the time) to record the afternoon session and ended up with this and kept it. I think it's worth a nostalgic once over for those old enough and might be interesting to the younger cricket fan. It's good to see Richie Benaud in early middle-age and confirmation that Ted Dexter talked the most infernal nonsense. Amazing that a few years later he was Chairman of Selectors.

Not sure if the Beeb will have this removed.

England v Australia 1985 Ashes finale

 

[watson]

Loved the final scene - Richie opens a bottle of champagne sent by Spike Milligan, tastes it and comments;

That's quite remarkable, you know what that tastes like?.......Ashes

 

[grecian]

Good stuff, interesting to hear them talk about Taylor and Ellison being around for awhile, of course it was Taylors last Test match, taking the winning catch and wicket in the Ashes.

Ellison played a few more, his last match here, only linked because of Maninder Singh's bowling figures in the second innings. Remember watching it at the time, pretty embarrassing from us.

 

[watson]

Since the panel spent some time discussing the forthcoming tour to the West Indies I decided to check the stats;


The West Indies won 5-0

Richard Ellison, the hero against Australia at the Oval played 3 Tests and took 7 wickets at 42.00, including a 5fer.

No English batsman scored a century, and only David Gower managed to finish the series with an average in the 30s (Ave 37.00, Top Score 90). Gooch was next best with 27.60, Top Score 53.

All of the frontline West Indian bowlers had a Strike Rate in the 30s. Joel Garner's 27 wickets cost him an incredible 16.15 runs a piece.

Desmond Haynes was the standout batsman with 469 runs at 78.15. Only one century.

Curiously, the West Indian batsman only scored 4 centuries between them. Given the talent on show for both teams the grand total of 4 centuries for the series seems remarkably low.


(Yet the England team was still able to bounce back and win the Ashes again in 1987 - amazing)

 

[grecian]

It's always an interesting thing to look at England's record in the 80s, it was actually appalling, but because we won the Ashes a few times, many look at it as a golden era, despite the Oz side being generally awful.

Wellham, Hilditch, Bennett, ummm yeah.

 

[Lillian Thomson]

Curiously, the West Indian batsman only scored 4 centuries between them. Given the talent on show for both teams the grand total of 4 centuries for the series seems remarkably low.

The fact that the wickets were prepared to favour the fast bowlers meant that some of the West Indies own batsman weren't as prolific as they might have been. There's also the fact that the England batting was so poor that the West Indies never needed anymore than a token second innings and therefore the opportunities to make centuries were limited.

 

[flibbertyjibber]

It's always an interesting thing to look at England's record in the 80s, it was actually appalling, but because we won the Ashes a few times, many look at it as a golden era, despite the Oz side being generally awful.

Wellham, Hilditch, Bennett, ummm yeah.

I remember it and it wasn't a golden era in my eyes despite a couple of ashes wins and a win in India. We were awful and had a constant revolving door of players who were crap and got matches because the last bloke failed in his opening 2 games. This of course got worse in 88 and 89 when we had the 4 captains in a summer and rebel tour announced during the ashes and used what felt like a brand new team each week.

Awful days, says a lot about how bad the Aussies were that they were beaten easily a few times, also says a lot about Simpson and Border for turning them round so well.

 

[fredfertang]

An era of terrible haircuts - Botham's mullet was one of the great crimes against fashion

 

[Lillian Thomson]

An era of terrible haircuts - Botham's mullet was one of the great crimes against fashion

The hair was down to his ill-fated union with agent Tim Hudson who also had a variety of earrings he wanted him to wear.

 

[wpdavid]

I remember it and it wasn't a golden era in my eyes despite a couple of ashes wins and a win in India. We were awful and had a constant revolving door of players who were crap and got matches because the last bloke failed in his opening 2 games. This of course got worse in 88 and 89 when we had the 4 captains in a summer and rebel tour announced during the ashes and used what felt like a brand new team each week.
Awful days.

All true. Actually my abiding memory of the announcement of the 1989/90 'rebel' tour was one of good riddance, as I was pleased to see the back of them. Which wasn't how I felt about the first one in 1982, when we lost Gooch and Emburey for three years.

If you're interested, there's a book out about English cricket in the 1980's. No idea how good it is, but I'll probably buy a 2nd hand copy from Amazon at some stage.

 

[grecian]

Yes, it's all very odd, I get this a lot with Exeter City supporters looking back on the glory days, of one promotion and a couple of Cup runs, ignoring all the hideous ****e that went on in between it all over decades.

Never had that type of memory that just blanks the crap out. I remember the home defeats against Pakistan, New Zealand, India, the humiliations against Windies. It just wasn't fun for the most part. If you are going to look back with a rosy glow, try to pick a time that wasn't beyond awful.

 

[fredfertang]

If you're interested, there's a book out about English cricket in the 1980's. No idea how good it is, but I'll probably buy a 2nd hand copy from Amazon at some stage.

By David Tossell, author of the magnificent 'Grovel' - I'm half way through it and it's excellent, though having been distracted by Frith's latest the review might be a week or two away

 

[wpdavid]

Yes, it's all very odd, I get this a lot with Exeter City supporters looking back on the glory days, of one promotion and a couple of Cup runs, ignoring all the hideous ****e that went on in between it all over decades.

Never had that type of memory that just blanks the crap out. I remember the home defeats against Pakistan, New Zealand, India, the humiliations against Windies. It just wasn't fun for the most part. If you are going to look back with a rosy glow, try to pick a time that wasn't beyond awful.

Not to mention the 0-4 hammering by at home to Aus in 1989, which was possibly the worst home series we ever produced, absolutely ever.

Plus the *** and drugs tour of NZ in 1984, whose Christchurch test was possibly our worst away test absolutely ever.

The worst thing about it is how some of the players involved are in complete denial. I remember one notable present day commentator justifying the blackwashes on the basis that WI did that to everyone, so it was OK really. Actually they didn't. No-one else was blackwashed at all. Other teams dug in to draw the odd test or even took a test somewhere along the line, but we just rolled over.

And the number of players involved was mind-blowing. 26 in the home tests of 1986, 28 in 1988 and 29 in 1989. Maybe it was the selectors who were on the drugs.

 

[wpdavid]

By David Tossell, author of the magnificent 'Grovel' - I'm half way through it and it's excellent, though having been distracted by Frith's latest the review might be a week or two away

That's the one. I'd forgotten it was by Tossell, whose 'Grovel' I really must obtain. Presumably it does more than simply talk us through the score cards.

 

[Lillian Thomson]

That's the one. I'd forgotten it was by Tossell, whose 'Grovel' I really must obtain. Presumably it does more than simply talk us through the score cards.

Grovel is absolute tripe.

 

[wpdavid]

Grovel is absolute tripe.

What didn't you like about it?

 

[Lillian Thomson]

What didn't you like about it?

Just about everything. It was dull, some stories were portrayed inaccurately and it just didn't evoke 1976 at all. I'm in a very small minority who didn't like it though so you might not agree.

 

[Julien]

It's always an interesting thing to look at England's record in the 80s, it was actually appalling, but because we won the Ashes a few times, many look at it as a golden era, despite the Oz side being generally awful.

Wellham, Hilditch, Bennett, ummm yeah.

It's notable that, whilst the 1985 Australian team was very likely the weakest team Australia ever produced for any Ashes series, the 1989 English team was similarly probably the weakest team England had produced for a home Test series. Thus, both the 1985 and 1989 Ashes sweeps say nothing about the victorious team, and everything about how bad their opponents were. In England, one would have to go back to the Pakistan tour of 1962 to see so weak a touring team from an established Test nation.

The close of the 1980s was a favourable time for a cricketing nation to rebuild and rise in the ranks, with a large proportion of the established nations weakening as stars from the early 1980s retired or lost their powers. Australia managed to take advantage of this opportunity very well. Their skill in doing this was critical to Australia becoming the world's premier cricket nation a decade later. I might also say that South Africa returning to international cricket when they did and not at some other time was a stroke of luck.

Just how appalling English bowling was at the tail end of the 1980s can be seen via two facts.

1. Firstly, not one English bowler took more than twelve wickets in the 1989 Test series.
2. Secondly, in the 1990 English cricket season not a single England-qualified bowler took wickets for under 26 runs apiece.

 

[Flametree]

Were England mucking around with the seams on the balls used about this time? Seem to recall they tried to stop trundlers getting their 80 wicket seasons by making the seam much less prominent at some time.

 

[Starfighter]

That was 1990. They did the same thing in Australia after the 78/79 Ashes and cricket's been cruddy here ever since.