Ashes 2009

Well it's a whole week now since England won the Ashes with a victory at the Oval to take the series 2-1 and it's just beginning to actually sink in. At the start of the series I predicted that Australia would win the series 2-1, so fortunately my prediction was wrong, but how did England manage to win this series, well I must say it's a mystery to me.

The series was a very good one, not as great as the 2005 series, but that will take some matching. It was a series again played hard by both teams, but neither team was as good as the two teams which locked horns in 2005. It was the first home Ashes series where there was no live coverage on terrestrial TV. As I will not give any of my money to the megalomaniac Murdoch empire, who seem intent on controlling the worlds media, it was the first home Ashes series which I had to follow via radio and TV highlights. The coverage on the BBC TMS was indeed superb, as always, it is criminal that the ECB have taken this ultra short sighted decision to sell their soul to Murdoch.

The England team was always likely to be the weaker batting team and so it proved, but I did not realise just how brittle the England batting was likely to be. Australia was always likely to have the weaker bowling team though it was debatable if this was the case, as neither team had any level of consistency in the bowling department. I suppose the biggest dissapointment for Australia must have been the form of Mitchell Johnston, who came into the series as a huge talent and finished it with plenty of question marks against him. The England bowling performance was at best patchy, the early series form of Stuart Broad was a huge dissapointment as he had performed so well in the previous couple of series, though his form towards the end of the series was certainly much improved.

It was also a series where we were robbed of some of the best talent by injury. Pieterson and Flintoff hardly played and Brett Lee did not play at all, which could only make the series poorer. But of course Flintoff played his part, not least by announcing that this would be his final test series before his retirement from test cricket. Maybe because of this the England team seemed to battle to an unlikely series win and give Flintoff a successful send off from the test arena.

So how did England manage to win the series, well I am still not sure, but the comments from Andrew Strauss about this Aussie team not having the same aura as the previous teams could not have been more true. The lack of this aura was demonstrated at the end of the first test in Cardiff. Can anyone imagine an Australian team with Warne and McGrath in that could fail to dismiss numbers 10 and 11 in 12 overs! it just would never have happened. This was a huge turning point in the series for me. The lack of penetration of the Australia bowling line up was displayed all too clearly and this must have given the England team great hope. It is obvious that a team which looses possibly the greatest spinner of all time and possibly the greatest seam bowler of all time will be weaker because of it, but I don't think anyone expected them to be this weak in the bowling department.

The Australian bowling was at times though made to look good by the fragility and lack of application of the England batting. There was really only Andrew Strauss who came out of the series with any real credit of all the England batsmen, without him we would have been well and truly in trouble. The remainder of the England batting showed a lack of application and even lack of technique, that leaves the England team with a serious problem, even after winning the series. Paul Collingwood and Ian Bell will be lucky if their tests careers continue much past this series. Much was made of the failure of Bopara, but he is without doubt a talent and he will have his part to play for England again, though hopefully further down the order.

My own personnel feeling on this series is that England were lucky to win it, though when we had the opportunities to make things count we did, but the performance on the whole was below what should have been expected. Let's hope that the England team now take the opportunity to build on this, rather than to sit back and congratulate themselves like they did in 2005. The best thing to be said about the two teams now, is that they are well matched, the air of invincibility of the Australian team is now a distant memory. I think that even following the 2005 victory, most people still felt that the Australians were almost invincible, that cannot be said of the current team.

It was a strange feeling to be listening to the final match at the Oval, where England looked to have thrown away a chance of winning, only for Stuart Broad to destroy the Australian batting line up and set up an amazing victory. I spent much of that match at work and constantly receiving text messages from my mam informing me of another wicket, then another wicket, then another, that will be my lasting memory of the series. After the immense sense of joy of winning in 2005 against what was one of the greatest test match teams ever, it was a much more low key feeling to win this time round, though it must be said that any victory against Australia is always a major landmark event and one which I will never of feeling.

So to the future, well both teams are now of a very similar standard, which makes future series all the more exciting. For too long England have gone into an Ashes series with a huge inferiority complex and had an uphill battle to overcome this, but this should now be changed. There are several things that England have to look forward to. Matt Prior seems to have secured the wicketkeepers position, he has batted well and his glove work has not let anyone down, so at last that position seems settled. Stuart Broad is well on the way to becoming a good allrounder, though he will have to step up another level to bat at number 7. And Graham Swann is fast becoming an integral player in the England team. His bowling is threatening, especially to left handers and his batting down the order is more than useful. Once the England middle order tighten up, then England will have a good team. The winter tour to South Africa will be a real test for them, lets hope that we don't spoil all the good work. As for Australia, well they need time to learn how to play without a world class spinner for the first time in 15 years. They have some decent options in the bowling and but nothing exceptional at the moment, though I am sure that Mitchell Johnston under performed and he could well come back to haunt England in the next series down under in 2010/11.

So England currently hold the Ashes and that is an amazing feeling, lets just hope that by the time 2013 comes around, we will still be holding them.