10 years of winning The Ashes England XI

[Lillian Thomson]

A bit jingoistic perhaps, but having spent 16 years believing we'd never win the Ashes again in my lifetime it seems to just keep on coming.

This is off the top of my head with no reference to stats or score cards, so there maybe obvious omissions but I couldn't give a monkey's.

Cook
Vaughan
Bell
Pietersen
Root
Prior
Flintoff
Swan
Broad
Hoggard
Anderson

 

[GIMH]

Trescothick for Vaughan and maybe Tremlett or Bresnan for Hoggard? In fact I'd say Harmison belongs ahead of Hoggard too, given they were pretty much equals in 05 and Harmy was reasonable enough at The Oval in 09z

And actually surely Trott belongs in there? But not sure who instead of as Bell's 2013 series earns him a slot if nothing else

Tough one

Edit - surely simon Jones is worthy of inclusion in Hoggard's place

 

[Furball]

Only person Harmison belongs ahead of is Saj Mahmood and even that's debatable.

 

[grecian]

Interesting thing about Vaughan, he was great when we lost the Ashes, but pretty awful during and after we'd won it. Whilst Tres was pretty poor against Oz in general but had a decent series in 2005 despite not getting a ton. Yet it's probably got to be Strauss annoyingly.

Can't argue with the rest of the side, actually picks itself more than I'd have thought, Trott for Bell another thought perhaps, I'm sure one that Furball will agree with, but Bell is the only one who has featured in all the wins.

 

[Cabinet96]

Strauss is a must. Instrumental in three of the five wins.

 

[GIMH]

Only person Harmison belongs ahead of is Saj Mahmood and even that's debatable.

Well it's certainly not debatable given Mahmood played in no Ashes wins

 

[Pothas]

Strauss is a must. Instrumental in three of the five wins.

Yeah, as Vaughan had his great series before we won then I think Strauss comes in for him

 

[burr]

Vaughan in 2002/3 was just about the best batting I've ever seen in Aus from an opposition player.

 

[TheJediBrah]

Funny how the "10 years of winning the Ashes" includes two 5-0 losses

Don't think that's ever happened before

 

[grecian]

Funny how the "10 years of winning the Ashes" includes two 5-0 losses

Don't think that's ever happened before

Got to lose to win.

 

[TheJediBrah]

Strauss ahead of Bell imo

Bell's played some good knocks, but he's had a few terrible Ashes as well (2005, 2006/07, 2013/14, 2015)

 

[GIMH]

06-07 and 13-14 are irrelevant to this thread

Cook
Strauss
Trott
Root
Pietersen
Prior
Flintoff
Broad
Swann
Anderson
S Jones

Stiff on Bell but Trott's 10-11 and Root's this summer probably trump his 2013

Having thought about it, no Bell is the only thing I'd be prepared to negotiate

From my eleven these are my top three

Flintoff - first name on the team sheet for 05 alone, but you add in Lords 09 and the Ponting run out for good measure. God
Broad - the best England Ashes bowler of my life
Strauss - embarrassed that I called for Trescothick on first glance. Strauss was good in 05, perfect foil to Cook in 10-11 and outstanding in 09. Champion

 

[The Battlers Prince]

Strauss ahead of Bell imo

Bell's played some good knocks, but he's had a few terrible Ashes as well (2005, 2006/07, 2013/14, 2015)

But no Bell no win in 2013, Strauss had Trott in '09. I'm not a big fan of Bell at all but I think he makes this English side

 

[GIMH]

Trott had a good debut in 09 but Strauss was MOTS. Not sure what he has to do with Strauss's success.

 

[Cabinet96]

Bell over Root imo. Both had summers where they were England's batting, and also other summers were they average but did occasionally contribute. But Bell has 10/11 which Root doesn't have.

 

[Spark]

Bell didn't do that much in 10/11 though. Not-that-useful 50s right until some world-class downhill skiing in the last Test when Aus were completely shot (the bowling in that Test...)

But I guess it's a shootout between one critical series performance each between them and a bunch of poor-to-mediocre ones otherwise. Root has played on more difficult pitches here, but Bell '13 faced better bowling (largely because of Harris). I'd probably still lean towards Root, but that's purely because I simply think he's a better batsman straight-up rather than his actual performances being markedly better.

 

[Cabinet96]

I think the series scoreline probably would've been the exact same had he not played (maybe Aus would've won Brisbane) but I don't think you can really hold that against him. He was class for most of the series, even in the rare moments Australia were on top and couldn't have done more at Adelaide and Sydney.

 

[GIMH]

Hang on, we put 517-1 on at Brisbane. Don't think it was Bell who stopped us from losing

 

[The Battlers Prince]

What I was meaning was that Bell was a lone hand in 13, but in 09 Strauss was more capably backed up by Trott

 

[Spark]

What I was meaning was that Bell was a lone hand in 13, but in 09 Strauss was more capably backed up by Trott

No he wasn't. Trott scored most of his runs after the series was effectively won. He did 0 backing up of Strauss at Lord's and Edgbaston, because he wasn't playing.

You might as well say that Bell in 2013 was backed up by KP.