A million reasons why Australia lost the 2005 Ashes
There has been a lot of blame cast around for Australia's infamous 2005 Ashes loss. Ricky Ponting blamed Billy Bowden. I blamed Ricky Ponting. Nathan Bracken blamed breath mints. Cricket Australia blamed the WAGS. Matt Hayden blamed God.
A new scapegoat has emerged. Damien Martyn has cast blame on the 2005 Ashes loss on Australian coach, John Buchanan:
"All comments by Warne and MacGill are right and you'd find that 99% of the group from that era would agree. They're just the only guys who've got [the courage] to say it. The management team didn't plan right, we had a not-very-good, quick preparation in Brisbane and then we landed and away we went.
We played a Twenty20 against England, which England still talk about, flogging us down in Hampshire. Buck was saying, 'It's only a muck-around game, don't worry about it' and we trained for four hours on the morning. So we went from the nets next door, busting a gut, into a T20 game where they rolled up playing it like a Test match and flogged us. There were a lot of mistakes made and a lot will never come out.
We got slack, everything clicked for them, they haven't played that well since then and they won't ever again. They built themselves up so much for the Ashes when the Ashes for us had dropped off because we'd won it so many times. For us it was conquering all things, World Cups, Champions Trophy, the subcontinent. The Ashes was just another series but for England it was their pinnacle and we just went underprepared."
Come on, Damo, you gotta release a book listing the "million behind-the-scenes reasons" for the series defeat. You've already got your title, "1,000,000 reasons why we lost the Ashes". Well, maybe trim it down to a few thousand reasons to keep the pages at manageable levels. Would make a fine counterpoint to Ricky Ponting's Captain's Diary.
| Posted by JC on Thu 2 Jul |  24 comments |
And England needed all their skill, luck, umpiring decisions, weather and millions of other things to go right to just pip Australia in what was still a very close series. We mustn't forget they almost choked a number of crucial times only to get bailed out fortunately in the end. Before you think I'm taking too much credit away from England, its no coincidence they haven't played half as good in any series after that. And a 5-0 pulverization in the next Ashes series just proves that.
But most of us even though it hurt with Australia losing, it feels that it all happened for the good in a way. Not only did we get a fantastic series that we'll never forget, but we wouldn't even be talking about this Ashes all that much if Australia continued to thrash England all the time. If we choose to think about it, when will the English cricket team ever get a chance to go on an open top bus parade and gloat like they did (too much of) again? It revived the sport, and now when everyone's watching, its time Ponting proved himself, and England were put in their place.
Posted by Ajesh Nag on 2009-07-02 17:41:34
Posted by JC on 2009-07-03 00:43:56
Underesting England!!
Posted by steyn lover on 2009-07-04 00:00:07
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