[TarJak]

Originally Posted by horsa

What arrant nonsense.

The English team are coming a bad second best to Australia this time round but this shouldn’t be a smug excuse to write off England’s performance in 2005. England are not going to apologise for “home crowd and conditions” anymore than Australia should for their current home advantage. And where does this myth of “bad luck” come from ? Was it “bad luck” that Ponting blundered with the toss at Edgbaston, or “bad luck” that he chose to take a suicidal single at Trent Bridge, or I suppose it was “bad luck” that Warne spilled Pietersen on that final morning of the Oval test.. No my friend , all of that was bad play. If we’re into that sort of approach then I’m sure I could claim that England’s 7 dropped catches at Lords were “bad luck”. The only genuine “bad luck” was Glen McGraw stepping on a cricket ball immediately before the second test and maybe arguably that England won 3 tosses to Australia’s 2, but those shouldn’t be used as a panacea excuse for why Australia lost the Ashes. The fact is the England team played better. Not by a country mile , but enough to beat Australia on that occasion. With four effective in-form seam bowlers the English attack was able to keep up the pressure all the time, in a way Australia hadn’t experienced in a long while. And in one critical department they were clearly superior – the captain’s performance. The England team had become a tight knit unit over the previous 18 months with the added momentum of a winning habit. All the elements had come together at just the right time, as it does with all winning teams including Australia who have maintained their momentum for over a decade.

That winning English team was already falling apart even as the final 2005 Oval test was playing. Simon Jones was absent through injury so the relentless pressure of four effective bowlers was removed. He has never returned. Compound that with the loss Michael Vaughan early in the winter campaign, the various absences of Trescothick, Harmison, Flintoff and Giles (to name a few) and it should be no surprise that rhythm and form have suffered. England have stuttered and started ever since. The records speak for themselves. Australia have won 11 out of their 12 succeeding tests and England have won 4 out of 12 ( I’ll exclude the 2006 Oval fiasco from the statistics) .

This is not the same England team, and neither is it the same Australian team, so let’s have none of this nonsense that the current series is some sort of rerun and only luck and home advantage were the reasons for England’s Ashes victory in 2005.

Horsa, It would appear that you have miscronstrued the last sentence in my post. My objective was not to make excuses for Australia's defeat in 2005 by blaming it on luck, conditions and crowd. My intent was to counterpoint the conditions under which the English are performing under this year as compared to last year. I could also have said that they are not the same team and that this years side is not performing as well as the 2005 side.

The main point of my post was that England this year do not appear to be as pschologically well prepared for the task as the Australians. If this is nonsense then Australia should have lost the first two tests and should lose the next 3.

I don't believe this to be so.