Ashes 2005 – The Return of Cricket

Foot Ball is the name of the game or is it? :

"Alan Shearer wants Owen and makes a million phone calls to Madrid" - This would have hit the headlines of most of the newspapers had it happened a couple of months back. How about this claiming the spotlight: 'Jessica Bohl visited the Bernabéu'. Jessica Bohl almost an unknown name to most but she is an actress in the motion picture "Real”. Quite Possible. Leave this alone. Imagine Beckham's hairstyles from Mohican to his spikes to his clean shaven head... These trivial yet interesting facts used to be the jewel of the Newspapers' crown. Britain… Britain... Britain… The mass of which is football fanatic; and Britain, the birth place of the great game of cricket. For almost a decade now, the followers of this game saw a nightmare of cricket’s extinction from England. Foot Ball was surely the talk of all until this Ashes.


Changing Attitude:

This ashes is all about England's grit and a discovery of a great player. There were times in the past when England hardly ever looked like winning a match be it a one day or a test and when they looked like, they succumbed to pressure, making sure they snatched defeat from the jaws of victory. And the wounds kept aggravating till a point when a defeat would just mean to them another one and the critics ran out of words!!!! If it ever will take something to redeem their pride, then this would be it: The Ashes. This means a hell of a lot to them considering the history behind it. If there ever was an English team that would intimidate the guts of these Aussies, if there ever was an English team that would shatter the confidence of Aussies, then this is the team that would do it; a special bunch of players and a serious one at that. They mean business. An Eye for and Eye, A tooth for a tooth, Aggression for Aggression seem to be the slogan. The expectations from these players were not set very high overnight. They out performed their potential in every game that they played.


This New bunch – A Force to reckon with:

Players like Trescothik, Vaughan, Collingwood, Flintoff, Pieterson, Geraint Jones, and Simon Jones have all one thing in common - Killer Instinct. Their nothing to fear attitude helped England's Cause tremendously and they all seem to have a congenital or a programmed belief that they are no less than their counterparts and they all believe in themselves. Then there are these people: Hoggard, Harmisson and Andrew Strauss - What a huge difference these people have made in International cricket. All these three people are highly talented and Hoggard in particular gives an impression of a mason, putting in hours and hours of bowling and hitting the same spot. Harmisson is fast and furious and his height helps as well. He might seem very childlike with his facial expressions and may have a body language that is not overpowering;but he is one of those who lets the ball do the talking. The inclusion of such immensely talented players in a team has a charm of its own in getting the crowd in to watching them play.Doubt it not. Ashes 2005 bears witness for it.


Freddie, where were you? :

Speaking of crowd pullers, did I mention earlier, this ashes is all about the discovery of a great player? Not a tough one to guess.
Yes, Andrew Flintoff - He has come up in leaps and bounds over the years and just looks matured, calm and beaming with confidence. Personally, I feel he is a shadow better than Chris Cairns and Kallis - Mind you, I would never imagine Kallis to be a better bowler than Flintoff. These are three of the best all rounders in the game today. There are people who raised their eyebrows when comparisons were drawn between Flintoff and Ian Botham. You can never compare two players of different era but surely he is the Ian Botham of world cricket today. If he continues to play the way he is and treats us to his great batting and bowling display, then he is well on his way to become another Imran Khan, Kapil Dev, Richard Hadlee, Clive Lloyd and even Greame Pollock, the man who I consider the greatest all rounder of all time. When I look back at Flintoff's career, he used to be kind of what we call in cricket as a 'Bits and pieces' cricketer and I thought was highly overrated by the British press. Oh boy! I never thought his deliverance would far surpass the expectations. There was a silver lining in his cloud when England beat Pakistan at Peshawar if I'm not wrong, when he England had to chase something like 240 runs in the final session of the test match. He, along with Graham Thorpe managed to hit the run rate which was almost three times that they'd managed in the first innings of that test match. The actual turning of point of his career or for that matter this whole England team was the tour of India. The main players did not come to India sighting security reasons. Hoggard, Flintoff, Trescothik, and a few others did make it to India. Flintoff suddenly discovered his potential with ball and Hoggard, I remember kept toiling and bowled his heart out.


Vaughan is here too

Michael Vaughan, we know how he butchered the Indian attack in 2002 and later in down under, made McGrath and Co feel what is to be like getting plundered. He has grown with experience and although he did not do much justice to his potential, this ashes saw his timely return to form. In 2002, his batting style was so contrary to many English players’. Naseer Hussain identified his talent and asked him to change nothing. He started off well but later went in to hibernation; here he comes with a bang with a solid knock of 166 at Old Trafford, Manchester. He is not presumptuous like Stephen Fleming and is not known to make bold statements like Ponting or Ganguly but he is there conveying the messages and how he conveyed we all know. His Clever fielding positions and intelligent use of bowlers are instrumental in the team's success.He commands the respect of his team mates and others in the game.


The Ashes so far – A sign of falling Aussie Arrogance:

Although, the series did not start the way England would have wanted and it seemed like yet another ashes sorry story at Lords, they managed to turn it around from then on. Edgbaston saw a humdinger of a match and the Englishmen ignored history to pull off a nail biting victory. At Old Trafford, Mc Grath showed us he can hang around with the bat long enough for the Australians to draw the match. But it was England again, who came through to win a mental battle and Michael Vaughan and his troops saw his opposition team celebrating their draw! Michael Vaughan quietly called the team for a huddle (Is it not the famous Indian Huddle?) and whispered “Boys, We have played really well and lets do it again!” ‘Let’s do it again’ – these are strong words from a strong captain.
Trent Bridge match was a match dominated by England but Aussies restored their character by playing out of their skins in the last two days of the match. The Genius of Shane Warne came alive yet again and Bret Lee bowled the only way he knows how to – Fast and he ran though Flintoff and Pieterson like a panther. But…But… All in vain… Hoggard and Ashley Giles – the so called Tail Enders held their nerves. I’m all sure that Oval will bring us another thriller that would keep us all to the edge of our seats.

Thanks to this supremely contested battle, Cricket is the reigning queen of News papers and millions of others who knew better than watching this game! Is Ashes coming home to England? Only time will tell. But if they gut it out the way they did this summer, England will emerge on top leaving the Aussies in utter shame.