Martyn batted like a tool when he wasn't getting sawn off, Clarke came into that series with question marks over his technique and temperament that he failed to answer. Like I said, his home summer of 04/05 contain 2 of his worst ever series.
In hindsight (wonderful thing etc) catching Australia when they did was perfect timing for England because there was a mini transition from Waugh's great team to their last hurrah as a truly great team between 2006 and 2008.
I agree with Uppercut's conclusion as well; I think only Flintoff and Simon Jones would get into the 2010/11 side from the 2005 vintage.
Comparing captains is interesting as well. Cook takes a lot of flak for his captaincy but while Vaughan certainly innovated with field placings the cordon wasn't particularly heavily manned during 2005.
Martyn played the key innings at Lord's - Clarke's was important too as I mentioned and he scored more but it was Martyn who really took the game away from us. And sure he could have batted better aside from the dismissals, but again we were bowling brilliantly, and when it's going against a batsman in terms of umpiring, they can have a tendency to fall away anyway (see also; Strauss 06-07).
Can accept the question marks that Clarke came into the series with and that he failed to answer on the most part, but it's not as though he came into the series as a guaranteed failure., We asked the right questions after Lord's but it's unfair to ignore that he was struggling with his back for the last three Tests.
The transition point is kind of fair, but again we forced that to happen with our performance. I mean nobody would question Gilchrist's quality but he was never really the same again after the series. A great opponent can do that to you (see also: England 13-14 - not to say our quality was anywhere close to the Aussies of 05). The Oz side had been and would get better, but it was still comfortably the best team in the world and outside of Australia I'd still argue it was better than any side that's played Test Cricket since.
As for the combined XI. Straight up disagree, given that ignoring captaincy (and if we pick on captaincy Vaughan gets in ahead of Strauss) the Strauss of 2010-11 wouldn't get in ahead of either Trescothick or the Strauss of 05. Strauss performed better in the series, so picking a combined XI depends on whether you go on series output alone or overall quality. A similar question exists for Pietersen, and I would probably argue that Pietersen circa 05-09 was a better player than afterwards, but he played better innings later in his career. Anyhow, I'll give it a shot.
Trescothick
Cook
Trott
Pietersen (circa 05)
Bell (circa 10-11)
Flintoff
Prior +
Swann
Anderson
Jones
Hoggard/Harmison/Bresnan/Tremlett
Not sure on the bowlers. All well and good to point to the stats etc. No doubt that Hoggard was the best overall Test bowler of the four. I've excluded Broad because he hardly played in 10-11. Bresnan and Tremlett's stats in 10-11 are superb, but they came into the series and benefitted from a lot of what went before, whereas Harmison did the opposite in 05, superb at Lord's, decent at Egdbaston then faded away. Would probably go Hoggard tbh.
Of course, I'm now without a captain. If you're picking on captaincy, then as I say you go Vaughan. Probably for Trescothick. But you could easily stick Strauss there given he was good enough and a better opener.
All this being said, I'm not really sure why I've bothered as the quality of the England side isn't really of any consequence because that's not what I'm arguing anyway. What I will say is, the 10-11 side may have struggled to beat the 05 Aussies because it lacks Freddie, and let's not beat around the bush here, that's why we won.
In summary. Freddie.
