Ashes 2006/07- Was It All Bad?

By Tom Bason
January 5 2007

Well, its all over. An embarrassing 5-0 whitewash, but the question that has to asked, can we take any positives out of this dismal performance? Was it all bad? Will any of Englands Members Of The British Order [sic] arrive back with egg on their face?

Well, to be fair, there must be the odd positive, surely. There must be!!:

• KP averaged over 54 against one of the worlds most potent attacks, and had the 4th highest average of all the players who played every innings, proving he is up there with the best batsmen in the world, when he's not left with the tail
  
• Paul Collingwood was the only man to hit a double century, showing he is capable of playing at Test level
  
• Alastair Cook hitting a century
  
• Ian Bell nearly doubling his runs total from the previous Ashes series
  
• Monty's 8 wickets at the WACA
  
• Geraint Jones is out of the team, with Chris Read twice taking 6 wickets in an innings
  
• We have the ODI's to look forward too

However, there have been far more negatives:

• Freddy's captaincy- made some very strange decisions in the field
  
• Saj Mahmood's underuse- if hes in the team, use him!! If hes not going to bowl, play Ed Joyce instead and improve our batting lineup
  
• We allowed every Australian batsman to overpower us- 8 of their batsmen averaged over 40
  
• Last year Australia had a bowler we could target, either Shaun Tait or Gillespie, but this year all of their 4 main bowlers took over 20 wickets
  
• Our highest wicket taker was Hoggy, with 13, 7 of those in one innings. None of our bowlers consistently performed
  
• Poor fielding- Giles dropping Ponting, misfields, overthrows
  
• Not taking advantage of good positions- declaring on 551, letting them win the Test, having them on the ropes at 5/85 in the fourth Test, with them finishing with 419
  
• Our highest opening partnership was 45, giving the middle order nothing to work with
  
• We have the ODI's to look forward too