Yes, we lost, cue mourning all round.
a few weeks ago I predicted
If the full Australian side stay fit:Australia 3 - England 1
If McGrath or Warne gets injuredAustralia 2-England 2
Top run scorer for England: Andrew Strauss
Top wicket taker for England: Freddie Flintoff
Top run scorer for Australia: Justin Langer
Top wicket taker for Australia: Shane Warne (easy one that)
I look forward to being proved wrong and England whitewashing the Aussies with Pietersen and Panesar taking the honours. Anything would be better than the last tour.
Well, we can dream. The 3-1 outcome is still possible - Australia often lose the final test to England once they've beaten them, and having won the ashes they may ease up a bit. The individual predictions are all wrong - Langer may still overtake Ponting, and Pietersen and Panesar were our best players in the last test, but otherwise it shows why I'm not a cricket pundit.
So as the post mortem gets under way, what do you think went wrong, a lack of preparation, wrong team selection, a lack of desire to win, just not good enough or possibly something else? Personally I think its a bit of all of them.
ReplyDeleteI think the Aussies are a better team, and we played out of our skins last year. Vaughan fit and captain, Panesar instead of Giles, would have made a stronger team, but it would still have been tough. Selecting Giles was a negative move and sent the wrong signal to everyone. Even further back, losing our bowling coach to the Aussies wasn't very clever!
ReplyDeleteWe have a good team: just compare the batting averages of our top 5 now with the averages of Atherton, Hussain, Butcher etc. and the previous England top order, they are way better. But the Aussies have a great team, and they've shown it.
Australia, I hate to say it, have the better team but England can take some comfort - Bell, Cook, Collingwood and Pietersen have all shown the ability to bat consistently and if Strauss didn't keep getting lousy decisions he would be in there as well.
ReplyDeletePanesar should have played all along. Probably same can be said for Read. I also think Strauss should captain the team if Vaughan is not available - take some pressure off Flintoff.
Agree completely. One cricket correspondent said that G Jones is looking a bit like Trescothick, too much of the ever-present 'intensity' is getting to him.
ReplyDeleteBegs the question of why the selectors messed with the team which beat Pakistan: instead they dropped Read, Panesar & Mahmood. Collingwood has been a revelation, and Pietersen just gets better and better. 3 in the world behind Yousuf and Ponting now. We're just desperate for consistent bowlers. There's 3 (Hoggard, Flintoff and Panesar), but we need 2 more.