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The English disease

BoyBrumby

Englishman
No, I don't mean sodomy, beating children, binge drinking, football hooliganism, crap teeth or questionable personal hygeine, rather the real English disease: an inability to sustain excellence of performance.

Twice now in the last decade England have been up and around the top spot in tests (in 2005 when we defeated the ATG Australian line-up of McWarne & Co and last year after whitewashing India to catually move to #1), but once the side reaches this level it seemingly gets a bad case of vertigo and things head south rapidly.

Why is this?

After the 2005 Ashes when Fletcher's England established themselves as the clear #2 test side one can point to a few mitgating factors as to why the side didn't kick on: never again would the awesome foursome seam attack of Flintoff, Harmison, Jones & Hoggard play together again, Vaughan's knee would mean he missed as many tests as he played thereafter, Trescothick's depressive illness would soon come to the fore & the lack of a quality spin option could only be papered over for so long.

This time things are perhaps harder to explain: we have a settled and capable (at least on paper) top seven, two decent spin options, at least half a dozen serious seam options to perm two or three from & arguably the best lower order we've ever fielded.

Ultimately tho the same result to follow the greatest triumph: an away defeat against a Pakistan side the tourists were strongly fancied to beat.

Can't just be co-incidence can it? Is there something in the English sporting psyche that means years of sustained success can never be grasped. As Dr Cameron Burge, emeritus professor of the Peter Stirling chair for Australianism at the Parramatta Institute would have it:

there's been one "dynasty" since WW2 - England in the 50s (no coincidence the era regarded as the most tedious in test history).
So it's not just a recent phenomenon. & one can point to examples from other sports too: our football and rugby union sides both failed to capitalise on world cup wins in 1966 & 2003 respectively. Why can't the English keep winning?
 

flibbertyjibber

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To be fair we have been beaten by a decent team after a long unbeaten run so we can't complain too much. Sould we lose in Sri Lanka then I will start to worry, or if we fail to win in either home series this summer.

Lets face it we all knew the series in Asia were going to be the toughest this side would face and deep down I thought if we won, drew and lost 1 of each of the 3 series this year that wouldn't be a bad effort. That can still happen so no need to press the panic button just yet. Also it is worth noting that the side we have lost to clearly has the best attack of the 3 sides we will face abroad in 2012.

Come back in a years time and examine the results we have had in 2012 and we know an awful lot more about this England side.
 

Spark

Global Moderator
Should the bowling start to fall apart then it's time to raise alarm bells. Until then, this is probably premature.
 

Zinzan

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I wonder if you're reading too much into this tbh. Isn't struggling to win in the sub-continent (UAE is close enough) against decent opposition the common denominator here?
 

vic_orthdox

Global Moderator
Was the series Aus lost in Pakistan (very close, Healy missed a stumping to win the game, from memory) very soon after we conquered the Windies?
 

Uppercut

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Or in other words, "why hasn't English sport lived up to the unreasonably high expectations of English sports fans?"
 

BoyBrumby

Englishman
Or in other words, "why hasn't English sport lived up to the unreasonably high expectations of English sports fans?"
Nah, not having that. I don't think beating an inferior (on paper and in most people's estimations) side is an unreasonable expectation. How many of the Pakistan side would make England's XI? Younis, Ajmal & maybe Misbah if he opened and captained.
 

Furball

Evil Scotsman
Was the series Aus lost in Pakistan (very close, Healy missed a stumping to win the game, from memory) very soon after we conquered the Windies?
If that was the series where Salim Malik tried to bribe Warne, then I'm 99% certain it was at least a year before the victory in the West Indies.
 

Woodster

International Captain
Yes they're not unreasonably high expectations at all, it's not the fans that say we're the best Test team in the world, it's the ICC rankings. With being ranked best team in the world comes inevitable expectation to succeed, that's not unreasonable that's absolutely natural.
 

Burgey

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Fmd I've been saying the same things about England since September 2006 and every time I do you ****s say I'm trolling.

Now you want to have a serious discussion about it.

I feel simultaneously vindicated and violated*















* and slightly aroused.
 

Burgey

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Was the series Aus lost in Pakistan (very close, Healy missed a stumping to win the game, from memory) very soon after we conquered the Windies?
Taylor's first series as captain wasn't it? Same series he got a pair on debut as skipper? I think the only time we toured Pakistan again with him as skipper was when he made his 300, and that wasn't the same tour. Might be mistaken.
 

Uppercut

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Nah, not having that. I don't think beating an inferior (on paper and in most people's estimations) side is an unreasonable expectation. How many of the Pakistan side would make England's XI? Younis, Ajmal & maybe Misbah if he opened and captained.
I'm not defending this particular result, I was just making a more general point. It's really strange to take a diagnostic tone when asking why your sporting teams don't achieve sustained excellence, despite being able to occasionally win World Cups and reach number one in the world rankings. Not that it's necessarily a bad thing to have high expectations. But the reasons why England lost in UAE are obvious; their batsmen weren't experienced enough in those conditions. The more interesting question is why the English feel the need to ask, "what's WRONG with our team!?" even when, in the wider scheme of things, they're doing really, really well.
 

BoyBrumby

Englishman
Probably Hafeez too, to balance the side if nothing else.
With the best will in the world, without the benefit of hindsight there's no way I'd be leaving one of Cook, Trott, Bell or Pietersen out for Hafeez.

But even if, by some miracle, Flower had a seers powers of prognostication and had played Hafeez ahead of (say) Bell that still leave a 4/7 split in favour of the defeated side.

I'm not buying "England weren't good enough" as the reason.
 

benchmark00

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I think if we constantly bring up SA and choking we have to equally associate England with mediocrity. Only fair.
 
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