Greatest ever Ashes series?

[wpdavid]

I've never been able to get anything of 1954\55, all I've ever known is that it was Tyson's series.
It's incredibly hard to get stuff of the away series before the 1990s.

I'm going to go out on a limb and guess that you haven't seen much of the 1902 & 1926 series either.

 

[wpdavid]

Were India nearly as invincible at home in those days as they have been since the 1990s?

They didn't lose many, but no, they weren't as strong in the mid-80's as in 2001/02. Gavaskar & Kapil Dev were world class, of course, and they had their own umpires in those days, but beyond that the side from a couple of years ago was better. That being said, there are parallels. England were missing players in 1984/5 too. Botham declined to tour, and Gooch and several others had got themselves banned. Willis had just retired, so our attack was led by a couple of very inexperienced guys in Foster & Cowans. Of the batsmen, only Gower & Lamb had much of a track record at test level befor the tour. After we lost the first test heavily, several observers thought we were about to suffer another 5-0 reverse.

Ultimately, after the 5-0 at the hands of WI, India was a fresh start several months later against new opposition, and that was true in 2001/02 as well. India were a decent side, but England knew from 12 months previously that they could compete in Asia, so I don't accept the view that 5-0 against Aus would have been significantly more demoralising that 4-1. They still needed guys like Hoggard, Flintoff, Foster & White to stand up & be counted, and that's what they did. That's my take on it anyway. I'm not sure that either of us could prove it 100% one way or the other.

 

[Richard]

I'm going to go out on a limb and guess that you haven't seen much of the 1902 & 1926 series either.

'Fraid not.
Don't suppose anyone else alive now has either.

 

[Richard]

They didn't lose many, but no, they weren't as strong in the mid-80's as in 2001/02. Gavaskar & Kapil Dev were world class, of course, and they had their own umpires in those days, but beyond that the side from a couple of years ago was better. That being said, there are parallels. England were missing players in 1984/5 too. Botham declined to tour, and Gooch and several others had got themselves banned. Willis had just retired, so our attack was led by a couple of very inexperienced guys in Foster & Cowans. Of the batsmen, only Gower & Lamb had much of a track record at test level befor the tour. After we lost the first test heavily, several observers thought we were about to suffer another 5-0 reverse.

Ultimately, after the 5-0 at the hands of WI, India was a fresh start several months later against new opposition, and that was true in 2001/02 as well. India were a decent side, but England knew from 12 months previously that they could compete in Asia, so I don't accept the view that 5-0 against Aus would have been significantly more demoralising that 4-1. They still needed guys like Hoggard, Flintoff, Foster & White to stand up & be counted, and that's what they did. That's my take on it anyway. I'm not sure that either of us could prove it 100% one way or the other.

England were exceptionally fortunate with the conditions in 2001\02, too, remember - Bangalore was more typically English than anything Sri Lanka and India saw here in 2002; Motera was relatively typical modern-day India in that it was a slow turner; and Mohali was as flat as a pancake.
I'm not altogether sure what the conditions in 1984\85 were like but I'm willing to bet a lot that England would have been hammered in India in 2001\02 had there been two slow turners and one big turner, which would be what would pretty much be expected in India.
I don't subscribe to the view that we knew we could compete in 2001\02 because we did in 2000\01, because of that squad we were missing Atherton, Vaughan in Test 1, Stewart, Thorpe from Test 1 onwards, Caddick, Giles in Test 1, Croft and Gough.
All indications were that we'd be hammered, and frankly we were rather lucky that conditions conspired in our favour so.

 

[Jamee999]

2005 was pretty good.

 

[Swervy]

2005 was pretty good.

yeah..not bad

 

[aussie]

Does nayone have the New Story of the ASHES DVD, i have it & judging by that plus the events of this summer the top 3 to me are:

- 2005

- 1981

- 1953 or 1932/33 too close to call

but one strange thing i must say i live in a cricket crazy family & my pops & uncle two cricket fanatics still maintain that 1981 was better than 2005, i saw the highlights & i totally disagree...