Post Ashes Blues

England's last Ashes triumph seems a distant memory now. The English demolition job at the hands of Murali brought back all too familiar memories of the 90s' beleaguered English teams.In the 8 months since the heady days of the Ashes conquest, England has played 9 tests, winning 2 and losing 4. In the meantime, the Aussies have romped to 11 test victories without conceding a single defeat. On present form, I would consider England lucky to pinch a single game, let alone retain the Ashes.

To be fair to England, their recent sub-continental assignments have been among the toughtest any team could expect to face. The constant injury woes hasn't made things easier for them . But then again, the English media and fans alike have been under the illusion that their team are world beaters. For a team of such lofty ambitions, the English media has excuses aplenty following every debacle. The Pakistan drubbings were brushed aside as anomalies, and all the struggles in India were forgotten with the solitary victory at Mumbai. And so the sub-continental expedition was declared a grand success. But even if they did lose why would it matter? Afterall, its not the Ashes, is it?

While England did dominate almost every session against the youthful Srilankan's, their failure to close out the games just emphasized their lack of squad depth and absence of killer instinct. Invariably, if Flintoff and Pieterson fails the team follows suit. But surely, I am completely wrong. The failure had to be due to something entirely different, like injuries, complacency or player burnout. Why stop at this... surely England were swindled out of a deserved win by a chucker, as opined by the respectable Mr Henderson in The Times.