Were England lucky to win the Ashes in 2005 ? ?

[Richard]

Even with McGrath and Gillespie fit and bowling well, I find it difficult to believe the result would have been different.

I find it difficult to believe it wouldn't.
Gillespie's being replaced by an imposter was IMO the biggest single influence on the series.

How many teams in a five Test series have ever managed to keep Gilchrist, Martyn AND Hayden (aside from the 5th Test) quiet? Not very many and only Martyn got a couple of shocking decisions. England had plans and executed them beautifully. You just KNEW that Hayden and Gilchrist were going to be tested in areas they didn't like and they really fell down because, again, the execution of plans against their weaknesses was near-flawless.

That's all well and good, but it doesn't affect Gillespie's form and McGrath's injuries.
But for those England would most likely have scored far less runs in return.

 

[Richard]

A lot of mentions for Gillespie's lack of form during the series. I think he simply had all his confidence smashed out of him by the English batsman in the ODI's beforehand. I.e KP at Bristol. Also has mentioned before No balls, certain players not being included, Hayden and Gilchrist being horribly exposed etc aren't good luck.

Indeed how on Earth anyone can say that Hayden and Gilchrist not scoring runs had anything to do with luck is beyond me - quite simply, they weren't good enough. That doesn't say a lot about Gilchrist - he'd averaged 107 in his previous 8 Tests, so he couldn't go on like that forever.
But I always fancied us at having the wood on Hayden.

 

[Richard]

Wasn't that the first game of the NatWest? Not sure.

It was indeed, and what's interesting is that we've seen bowlers do that plenty (Bravo does it about every other game) and what people seem to have missed is that Gillespie actually recovered from that and bowled pretty well until Pietersen went berserk towards the end of the innings.
That Pietersen knock was the only thing you could possibly base anything on, anyone attempting to place anything whatsoever on the Twenty20 game is, quite simply, crazy - in Twenty20 you go for everything against every bowler. Lee and McGrath got the treatment from Jones, Trescothick and Collingwood, too.

 

[Richard]

But i still feel that if Australia had been fielding at their usual high standards

That's the point - Australia's usual fielding standards ARE NOT high, haven't been for years, Australia have been a poor fielding side since Pakistan 2002\03, and I was pretty sure that might have an impact upon the series, unlike in The Ashes 2002\03.
I was right, too.

 

[Richard]

You think they lost the ashes because of dodgy fielding?

Had their catching suddenly magically remedied itself (and the no-balling been lessened) it's perfectly possible that, all other things remaining as they were, England would not have won the series.

 

[Richard]

straight up...tell me why the Australians are a better team right at the moment.

Err... England lost a series that was there for the taking in Pakistan?
After The Ashes 1989 Australia came home and defeated Pakistan, when Pakistan might easily have been perceived to be the stronger outfit.
It's no good beating the main opposition if you drop those standards immidiately.

 

[Richard]

No England weren't lucky to beat Australia. You can't be lucky over a 5 test match series IMO.

You can be lucky over any period.
The longer the period the less likely, but nothing is impossible, certainly not a mere 5 Tests.
What would be more accurate to say is that for teams, luck is a very murky thing indeed, containing all sorts of permutations.

 

[Richard]

trescothick is among the top 5 openers in the world, but after that?

I'll say it now - if Gillespie gets back into the team and returns to his normal self, I simply cannot see Trescothick doing much with the bat in 2006\07.

 

[Richard]

Vaughan IS a world class batsman

Well... potentially he is but there's no denying his form of the last year has been extremely worrying, and now perhaps even more so his knees are beginning to pose real problems.
It's not like it's ever been any secret that his knees aren't great shakes, he mentioned it in an interview shortly after becoming captain, but I don't think anyone really expected it to become a problem so soon.
Will he still be playing in 2 years' time?

 

[Richard]

I think the knock by Ashraful and the dent the Tigers created on the Aussie confidence is being under rated here. It might have been a factor (albeit not a big one) too.

No more so than those by Smith and Jayasuriya.

 

[aussie]

That's the point - Australia's usual fielding standards ARE NOT high, haven't been for years, Australia have been a poor fielding side since Pakistan 2002\03, and I was pretty sure that might have an impact upon the series, unlike in The Ashes 2002\03.
I was right, too.

fair point about their fielding standards not being that high since PAK 2002/03, but lets sya they had taken 90% of the catches they dropped during the ashes becasue it would be unfair to think they could have taken all, it would have helped their cause.

 

[aussie]

I'll say it now - if Gillespie gets back into the team and returns to his normal self, I simply cannot see Trescothick doing much with the bat in 2006\07.

good point this, Dizzy in 2001 & 2002/03 was the one who got Trescothick out most of the time even though McGrath always seems to be the bowler who could expose his faulty technique, so if both of them are bowling well in 2006/07 Tres could struggle for sure.

 

[Richard]

fair point about their fielding standards not being that high since PAK 2002/03, but lets sya they had taken 90% of the catches they dropped during the ashes becasue it would be unfair to think they could have taken all, it would have helped their cause.

Of course it would - but the point I'm making is that Australia were always likely to drop plenty of catches, because they've been doing it for ages.
And dropped catches will always influence a series, hugely.

 

[William]

Were Australia lucky when they won 3 tosses in a row in India in 2004? Were they lucky that Patel and other fielders dropped too many chances? Were Bangladesh lucky that certain Australia players played badly at Cardiff?

There is an amount of luck involved in every game of cricket and while I accept that Glenn McGrath's injury made a large difference to the series it's only fair to mention all the injury problems England had in past Ashes series (02/03 in particular). At the end of the day England did have some 'luck' but when chances to capitalise on that luck came about they usually took them whereas Australia didn't.

 

[Dasa]

You would be hard-pressed to find more than 1 or 2 people, even English supporters, who even in the post-Ashes euphoria, were saying that England were ready to assume the mantle of 'best team' in world cricket.

How on Earth so many people keep trying to make an argument about something where no-one seems to be taking the contrary position is beyond me.

Can someone explain this to me, please?

Even if India actually beat England 3-0, I would still consider England at full whack to be nigh on as good as Australia is, given that England bowling line up is far deeper than ours, and really if it comes down to it, Australias batting is probaly only slighly better tha England when in form

That seems to me like someone is making the argument, LE.

 

[sqwerty]

Without a shadow of doubt??? Given how England bowled there's no guarantee he'd have done any better than whoever he'd of replaced.

Given the fact that Hussey was the only Aussie to plunder the England attack in the one day series and given what we've all seen of him since I'm convinced he would have made a huge difference in what was an extremely close series.

 

[Richard]

What, precisely, does the ODI series have to do with anything?
Jones is not a good ODI bowler, Harmison is not a good Test bowler, Tremlett and Lewis didn't play in the Tests (thank God), Hoggard didn't play in the ODIs (thank God), and Gough didn't play in the Tests (after bowling pretty poorly in the ODIs in any case).
Just because Hussey succeeded in the ODIs doesn't say anything as to whether he would've succeeded in the Tests. He might have done, yes, but the ODIs cannot be used to suggest that.

 

[Richard]

Were Australia lucky when they won 3 tosses in a row in India in 2004? Were they lucky that Patel and other fielders dropped too many chances? Were Bangladesh lucky that certain Australia players played badly at Cardiff?

There is an amount of luck involved in every game of cricket and while I accept that Glenn McGrath's injury made a large difference to the series it's only fair to mention all the injury problems England had in past Ashes series (02/03 in particular). At the end of the day England did have some 'luck' but when chances to capitalise on that luck came about they usually took them whereas Australia didn't.

There is a huge amount of luck in all games of cricket - defining that luck, outside the basic dropped catches, missed stumpings, bad Umpiring decisions and the odd toss (most tosses make little impact on the game), is near enough impossible.
In any case, dropping catches and missing stumpings is all part of playing badly.

 

[IndianByHeart]

I think they were plain lucky. Australia were overconfident and played poor cricket, on top Australians were missing their main players coz of injury.

Next time around i think Aus will win it 4-1 or 4-0.

 

[Richard]

That's as maybe.
But as I've said - "luck" where teams are concerned is exceedingly difficult to pin-down and best not discussed too seriously.