The unhealthy obsession with the Ashes

[99*]

Originally Posted by Burgey

See all the ****ing mints falling from the sky in that photo?

Cheating ****s.

[Top_Cat]

The article-writer is spot-on about the hyprocrisy over Stuart Clark, though.

[pasag]

Strauss

[oitoitoi]

That article is spot on, can't believe that Strauss came out with that, the whole thing's just embarassing really. They cant have their cake and eat it too regarding foreign players. It's rubbish like this that makes me support Australia every ashes series (the only time I support them reall...). The biggest problem with the ashes obsession is that it's asymmetrical, Australia concentrate on the job in hand, England come up with grand misguided schemes that almost never work.

What's the deal with this precam bloke? Why's he banned? There seems to be a reference to him in every thread.

[sammy2]

In the past they weren't competitive in the wisden series, so no surprise they cared less about it.

[Burgey]

What was susu-precumbrain-fidel banned for this time?

[Redbacks]

We're all dreaming of a repeat to 2005, except at a slightly lower standard and a different winner this time

[Jono]

Good example of people playing the poster, and not the topic here.

He made a good point, and Sambit Bal's article is right on the spot. Unbelievable hypocrisy by England. Strauss' comments are a joke.

The Ashes obsession, along with mediocre cricket players of course, isn't helping England one bit. Their results over the last 4 years proves that.

[four_or_six]

Originally Posted by Jono

Good example of people playing the poster, and not the topic here.

He made a good point, and Sambit Bal's article is right on the spot. Unbelievable hypocrisy by England. Strauss' comments are a joke.

The Ashes obsession, along with mediocre cricket players of course, isn't helping England one bit. Their results over the last 4 years proves that.

It's true, of course. But it seems like poor jounalism by Sambit Bal, I actually had to double check the date because I thought I'd read that article before ages ago. And had a conversation about it on CW.

[Steulen]

Originally Posted by four_or_six

It's true, of course. But it seems like poor jounalism by Sambit Bal, I actually had to double check the date because I thought I'd read that article before ages ago. And had a conversation about it on CW.

Yep, I clearly recall ranting about England's Ashes obsession a loooong time ago on here, and I think a Sambit Bal piece was the starting point then as well.

On our friend Fidel, was he really a Precam duplicate? This was his nice and sensible other self then?

[Uppercut]

Originally Posted by Jono

Sambit Bal's article is right on the spot. Unbelievable hypocrisy by England. Strauss' comments are a joke.

The Ashes obsession, along with mediocre cricket players of course, isn't helping England one bit. Their results over the last 4 years proves that.

That's true, yeah. There already is a thread about it where i had a good rant about how they're being ****ing *****.

[BoyBrumby]

Originally Posted by Jono

Good example of people playing the poster, and not the topic here.

He made a good point, and Sambit Bal's article is right on the spot. Unbelievable hypocrisy by England. Strauss' comments are a joke.

The Ashes obsession, along with mediocre cricket players of course, isn't helping England one bit. Their results over the last 4 years proves that.

The latter is a far bigger factor than the former, IMHO.

Before 2005 we'd won something like 5 series on the bounce and we were no less Ashes-obsessed than now. The major difference is we somehow managed to put a decent XI (well X, really, Bell was preferred to Thorpey, after all ) on the park, which injuries, retirements, loss of form and mental breakdowns have subsequently decimated. & it was obvious even from the fifth test when we replaced a quick with a batsman that our back-up options weren't that flash.

[SJS]

They may be obsessed with it but why is it "unhealthy" ?

[Evermind]

Viva La Revolución!

Baby.

[Steulen]

Originally Posted by SJS

They may be obsessed with it but why is it "unhealthy" ?

Because it makes them lose Series they should win?

That's a bit harsh perhaps, so let me elaborate. Every single time England play a Test match, regardless of the opposition, both the team itself, commentators, newspapers and fans (notable here on CW as well) put that Test into an Ashes perspective. "If we don't resolve our #3 conundrum, how can we win the Ashes?", and similar things like that, said during the first of a four-match series against West Indies, for instance.

To me, this implies that England are not trying to beat the current opposition but are always building towards the Ashes. "We don't know who to play at #3 but we'll try a few things out for now because we're not playing Australia".