The fact that it took us a year to win a series again? The fact that we lost two out of three Tests following the Ashes? That's on the way down if ever I saw it. Blame injuries if you want but that's not here or there.
It was definately injuries.
- Trescothick was getting better (as he has shown by his plundering of attacks for Somerset all the time these days).
- Jones could/should have become one of the best bowlers in the world.
- We clearly missed Vaughan's leadership was between 2006-2007, plus his knee injury woes to a level affected his batting when he came back.
- Flintoff never got to becoem to complete all-rounder he should have been. Eveytime his came back his batting struggled to click, although is bowling always was on point.
Off all the series between PAK 05 to WI 09, the only series i think we may have still lost even with a full strenght was in PAK 05. Since Akhtat was magnificent. In all most every series we have injury woes (most notably when IND won 1-0 in 07, our entire first choice attack was missing). We definately would NOT have lost 5-0 in the Ashes with that full-strenght team.
ENG definately had a team if all had stayed fit after the 05 Ashes, that could have been on of the best in the world. The same unfortuantely CANNOT be said about the team post win the 09 Ashes.
That side is hardly different to the one we can expect to be fielded in SA just lose Tresco, Flintoff & Jones. Cook has made changes to his technique but you choose to ignore these.
No he hasn't Cook's technical flaws are:
- he gets himself trapped on crease, thus is huge LBW candidate for right hard inswing bowlers especially.
- he doesn't know where his off-stump is when facing. Plays at alot of deliveries he shouldn't.
That was well exposed in 06/07. Since then the two series he has come up againts quality pace attacks IND 07 (not quality pace attack per seh, but as you should remember Khan & co swung the ball alot) SA 08 & Ashes 09, he has been well exposed.
You could probably argue that if Trescothick was still around, maybe Cook may have been batting @ 3 for an extended period (since Bell may have been axed first). But with Trott coming in the team now, he defiantely would not have been in the team in this hypotetical situation.
And given that he was retained ahead of Strauss in 07-08, your statement is pure speculation.
Because Strauss had lost form after his shocking 06/07 Ashes performance. Nothing to do with Cook's excellence.
Again, Broad & Onions, we don't know how good they will be. Broad has shown a few times this year that he has real promise (more than Flintoff did at his age for sure) and Onions has looked pretty good at times. There's certainly enough there to be optimistic about. Sidebottom doesn't appear fit enough to carry a Test workload anymore, sadly.
As for your 'god forbin [sic]' to Davies, not going there again.
The improvement in Broad, the emergence of Onions and Anderson's ongoing progression are obvious signs of improvement from twelve months ago, but hey ho, ignore this, that's cool.
Anderson alone has progressed i agree. Broad & Onions are very much up in the air. I have far more faith in the West Indies pace trio of Taylor/Roach/Edwards going forward than what we have.
Thought we were talking Tests? And, erm, Trott???
Morgan too. He should be playing in first test AFAIC & should be ahead of Bell.
And what happens in SA can neither prove nor disprove whether the Ashes win was a fluke, absolute nonsense.
The best teams don't make mistakes, winning teams win the key points, this seems to be lost on you. Cricket isn't played on paper.
Yes if he we lose in SA will prve that the Ashes was fluke & yes the best teams do & have made msitakes.
If you beat a superior team it should be a sign of definite improvement or a turnaround in fortunes. Look at the example i gave with England beating South Africa in 98, when then lost to SRI the NEXT series & a year later when NZ toured we lost & were herald the worst team in world. So quite clearly that win vs a fair superior SA team was a fluke, since that series didn't signal any revival during the dark 90s.
Same thing with WI drawin 2-2 with AUS in 99. Lost to NZ next series & they still remainded crap for the next decade.