Despite his first Test match duck last night, Jonathan Trott currently has the second highest Test match batting average OF ALL TIME

Trott is averaging about 61 and is in his 18th Test match...to put that in context, Mike Hussey averaged 86 after his 18th Test match. His form went into steady decline since then punctuated with big scores here and there to keep his average still above 50.

whilst watching the 1st few overs of todays play do we actually get any credit for what we`ve achieved in australia...the press are repeatedly saying this is the worst aussie side ever(true).but how good have england been..lets give crediy where its due..roll on the 1 dayers i can see us give the aussies a good walloping in that as well..WELL DONE BOYS

www.dailytelegraph.com.au/sport/ ... 5955985591

www.dailytelegraph.com.au/sport/ ... 5955985591

debatable - try the aussie touring side in 1977 - they were pretty poor

In the last series, we beat the Aussies 2-1 at home, with a great escape at Cardiff and a hugely rain-affected draw at Edgbaston.
The 09 Australian side was as below, and while clearly weaker than in 05 and 06/07, was not roundly ridiculed as one of the 'worst ever':

Hughes/Watson
Katich
Ponting
Hussey
Clarke
North
Haddin
Johnson
Hauritz/Clark
Hilfenhaus
Siddle

The 10/11 Aussie line-up is essentially the same. They're not the worst Aussie side ever, either, they've just been made to look embarrassingly bad by a bloody impressive England outfit.

At the risk of being a killjoy I think there has been a bit of over the top hype about the current England team. Yes winning the Ashes home and away is a great achievement and I am enjoying it as much as anybody else but some of the discussions in the broadsheets have been along the lines of this England side being one of the 'great' cricketing teams, IMO its a long way off that. It's a good unit very well coached and prepared, and they maximise their ability. The bowlers bowl a disciplined line and length but we lack top quality strike bowlers even compared to guys like Gough, Flintoff and Simon Jones when fit. Guys like Anderson, Tremlett and Bresnan are roughly the same quality as Hoggard, Caddick and Mark Ealham. As for the batsmen I think its hard to truly judge how good they are. They have filled their boots in this series but I would not go overboard about Alastair Cook, you have to put in context what the bowling was like. There was no Glenn McGrath probing a relentless line, their only threatening bowler Johnson, sprays it all over the place...Hilfenhaus, Siddle and Watson are run of the mill and not really Test quality (when you think guys like Kasprowicz, Fleming and Clark used to be the Aussies 'lesser' bowlers, they were still aggressive accurate bowlers who could get top batsmen out). The Aussie spinners in this series have been an absolute joke, the likes of Ian Salisbury and Chris Schofield come to mind. Cook has set all these records against them but lets be honest if you rewound the clock a few years, we could have sent Hick and Ramprakash over there and they would have killed this lot, I honestly reckon Ramprakash even now in his 40s would have had a couple of centuries on this tour. I think Cook will always struggle against bowlers who swing it and bowl an accurate length, I wonder how he would have one on if Anderson had been in the Aussie attack.....look what the Pakistanis like Asif did in the summer. Yes he's a good player with the ability to concentrate for long periods. Is he better than his predecessor Trescothick? For me no.

I would put this England team about the same level New Zealand got to in their peak under Stephen Fleming a few years ago when they were about 3rd best in the world, they had a really good workmanlike unit who could see off most teams but when it came to facing real quality they didn't have enough great players to win. I think if you put this current England side against the Aussies of four years ago it would have been probably 3-1 but the scoreline would have been the other way. Quite a few of the players (Strauss, Cook, Pietersen, Bell, Collingwood, Anderson) did play against those Aussies and were well out of their depth losing 5-0, and that was with Flintoff in the England team.

Winning this series is a good achievement but I think we will have to wait for history to see how it compares to 1986/87 in terms of how these Aussies turn out. 86/87 was a great achievement because we beat what was actually a very good Aussie side that we had played before it peaked, it won the World Cup a few months later, and that team had Border, Boon, Steve Waugh, Jones, Hughes and Reid in it, who would go on to crush lesser England sides in the future. Will this current Aussie team prove to be a team of greats who weren't quite ready, or a one off selection of guys not up to the job who soon drifted out of contention....I reckon the second.

To give a rugby league analogy I reckon us winning this Ashes series is like Warrington beating Bradford at Odsal. It's always something you see as a good achievement, but if we tried to argue that this was an all time great Wire side on the strength of beating the current Bradford side at Odsal it would be a hard sell...

There was a side full of greats that went out to Australia in the 1950s. May, Cowdrey, Laker, Lock, Statham, Trueman, Bailey, Tyson, Graveney, Evans, Dexter. They were destroyed 4-0.

IMO we need to beat India this summer. They seem to be the bees knees at test cricket ATM, so I think a win against them would dramatically increase our test ranking.

You make the mistake of believing that a side can't improve or get worse over the course of time.

That Aussie side of 86/87 was a distinctly average one, despite having future greats like Waugh and Boon in it.....At that particular point many of them were untried and untested and were reliant on Border in the batting and Lawson in the bowling. Certainly they were no better (or as bad) than the present Aussie lot.

I agree that the present Aussie side is an average bunch, but if we are going by 'names', which it seems that you are, then the likes of Ponting, Clarke, and Hussey stand up against any of those names that you band about from 86/87.

quite right,but as we seem to say nowadays,'you can only play what's in front of you' !

WELL DONE LADS !

saying that,the current english squad aren't world beaters and I rate Strauss as an average skipper but they do seem to be well disciplined (ie less loose bowling stints,better shot selection and not giving thier wickets away cheaply,sharper in the field etc) side and well balanced. I think a lot of credit must go down to Andy Flower & the much maligned selection committee

Losing the class of Warne & McGrath was the big difference for me - great players like these are like gold dust

ps - would love to see Mitchell Johnson at Essex CCC !

Q: What would Jimmy Anderson be if he was Australian?

A: An all-rounder