Dec 19, 2006 07:19 PM
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Which team held the Ashes for the least period of time, 15 months, from 2005 to 2006?
Which team keeps changing it’s captains, and players, more often, than a heroine changes dresses in a Bollywood movie?
Which team has managed to consistently convert dull draws to exciting finishes, by managing to lose the game?
In which team were the best performing bowler, and a reliable wicket keeper batsman were kept out, as the coach did not like them?
And above all, on losing , who makes excuses for everything, the weather, the crowds, the food, the umpiring, the injuries, but refuses to accept the fact that they did not play well enough?
Well even a high school kid, with some knowledge of cricket, knows the answer England. Yes the same England which prides itself as the homeland of cricket and soccer, the same England which once established Pax Brittanica all over the globe, the same England which had some of the finest leaders like Nelson, Churchill, Wellington. And today the same English team stands as one of the biggest losers in the game of cricket.
This is just not about how England lost Ashes 2006, that is a separate topic altogether. The fact is that if we follow the English cricket team post Ashes 2005, no one would have been surprised by their loss. They lost in Pakistan to Pakistan, managed to draw the Test series in India thanks to Rahul Dravid ( by electing to bowl first on winning the toss) and our own batsmen( by their irresponsible batting on the last day) giving them a Christmas present, managed to draw a series against Sri Lanka in England, and the sole bright point being the Test series victory over Pakistan in England. The less said about their ODI performances the better, thrashed in Pakistan, India, thrashed by Sri Lanka on their home grounds, and just managing to draw a series against Pakistan. Oh yes, they also played in the Champions Trophy, if some one cares to remember.
One thing that sucks royally about the English cricket team is their A-T-T-I-T-U-D-E. The Pakistanis and Aussies get on the nerves with their in your face aggression and boorish behavior. But as tourists, none can top the hated list, as much as the English cricket team, for their sick attitude. Or may I say more than the team, their retinue of media persons and former cricketers. Right from the moment they arrive, they crib about everything, from the food, to the crowds, to the umpiring, to the heat, to the dust. And that patronizing attitude, irritates the common man, and he wants to see their team lose badly. I am not sure, about other countries, but when they do visit India, they still behave as if they were the former rulers of the country. So if they lose matches in India, it’s due to the crowd noise( can’t concentrate), the dust( we cant stick around for long periods), the food( you see so and so had some strange exotic dish, and was laid up, so we lost the match) , the pitches( bah these Indians, always preparing turners, don’t they know we cant play spin) and of course the umpiring( had we not got those decisions, we would have won the match).
Yes of course they lost the Ashes, because poor Andrew Strauss, got all wrong umpiring decisions, which then makes the Aussies point back about the dodgy umpiring in Ashes 2005. But to date, I rarely see an instance when the English media and their team own up to the fact, that the other team played better cricket than them. It’s not that the English media is the only biased one in the world, the Pakistani and Sri Lankan media can be equally biased too. But when it comes to partisanship, the English media wins it hands down. And that rubs off on their cricketers too.
One more thing which I noticed with England, is that whether in cricket or soccer, they tend to forever live in past glory. So in cricket it is Ashes 2005, and in soccer it is WC 1966. England won the Ashes in 2005, and while the celebrations were fine, the problem was the players still remained in that celebratory mode. They forgot that the Ashes is not the be all and end all of cricket. Every time they lost a ODI series, their answer was “Oh this is not important, Ashes 2006 is important”. They crashed out of the Champions Trophy, and again it was “Who cares about ODI tournaments, Ashes 2006 is important to us?”. Now this sort of attitude put off many people, at least I can vouch for that in India. When they toured India, they were forever cribbing, saying that the ODI series is not important, same thing, they acted as if they were doing us a favor by playing in the Champions Trophy. I don’t know about other people, but it certainly hurt my feelings as an Indian and also as a cricket lover. I mean every series you play in is important, and you simply can’t say that we are playing only for a particular series. In that case why play cricket. Just make sure, your cricket team plays only in Ashes, we can at least be spared all those condescending remarks, whenever they tour some country. I was one of the happiest persons when the Aussies took the Ashes from them, and I sincerely hope that the Aussies beat them 5-0. That should wake them up and let them know that other countries also play cricket too. Yes I want this English cricket team to be beaten, butchered and ground into dust so badly, that they can in turn start to respect other countries.
Respect your enemy is an age old adage of war. The Aussies lost the Ashes in 2005, because they took it for granted. They still had no respect for the Poms in 2006, but were not prepared to take the Ashes for granted, and won it back. Sadly the English cricket team , never tries to respect their opponents. In spite of the fact, that at best they are a decent team, they have this over bearing arrogant attitude, that they need to turn up and the match is theirs. It’s this arrogance that has led them to lose matches like the ODI at Delhi in the early part of the year. They simply believed that all they had to do was blast the Indian bowlers out of the park, and the match was theirs. And they ended up losing a match that was theirs for the taking. They took the Sri Lankan team for granted, and they ended up drawing the Test series 1-1, having no answers to Murali’s guiles in the final Test. And in the ODI series that followed, they were whipped( to put it very politely), 5-0. During the build up to the Ashes, they made snide remarks about the Aussies being a Dad’s Army and in the first Test they were put in their place. During second Test Fletcher made remarks about Warne not being at his best, and on final day, they had no answer to Warney’s googlies. Even now after being roundly thrashed in the Ashes, I can hear them talking about Ashes 2009, and how most of the current players of the Aussie team are not there. The Aussies made a mistake in 2005, and I don’t for a moment ever think that they will repeat the same mistake again. It’s this snide attitude towards other teams, that makes every team want to beat them badly.
