The Hindu : Sport : England on track to being the best

Online edition of India's National Newspaper
Friday, Sep 16, 2005

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England on track to being the best

It was a great series with fluctuating fortunes, superb personal performances and pulsating finishes

Steve Waugh

With the Ashes series reaching its conclusion, there are two questions that are on top of every cricket discussion: Can England claim to be the number one team? and should Australia's loss ring in a change in leadership?

Right now, it's very hard to choose the better team between Australia and England. However, I still do think Australia are slightly ahead. England have been phenomenal over the last 18 months, winning in the West Indies and South Africa and now regaining the Ashes.

Any team is judged by both home and away records, and England are notching up some very impressive wins. However, the next 18 months will see Michael Vaughan lead his team to the sub-continent and then to Australia.

Pakistan and India have always been unassailable at home, and if England get past these teams, they will be justified in regarding themselves as World Champions.

Consistency is the hallmark of all great teams, and if England maintain their high success rate till 2007, they will consider themselves front-runners for the World Cup as well.

Ponting is a great captain

As far as Ricky Ponting is concerned, I still think he is a great captain, and we have to remember how he led his team from the front in the World Cup. The team still has great respect for him, and his real test begins now because the world will be watching how he fares over the next few months.

I did think that Australia's gameplan was a little defensive, especially when it came to field placement. Bowling attacking lines with defensive fields worked really well in India, but England's players found a way around it, and that was when Australia fell short. They did not have Plan B, and that lack of flexibility cost them dear.

England played very good cricket from the second Test onwards, and there was little doubt that they were the side that set the pace in every game. It was a great series with fluctuating fortunes, superb personal performances and pulsating finishes.

The next two months will give us signs of whether Ponting can raise his team after this defeat. He has to take the fall since he is the leader, but how he emerges from it will define his calibre as leader.

Stakes are higher

The competitiveness at the Ashes has also raised the stakes at the Super Series. The Australians will feel that their reputation is somewhat restored if they manage to win against the combined might of the world's best. There is a great deal of interest in the six-day Test, now that everybody is convinced that Test cricket is every bit as exciting as any other version of the game.

If Ponting can win over the ICC XI it will be a big consolation for the fans in Australia. Either way, I don't see any major threat to his position since many past Australian captains have survived a lost Ashes series.

Readers in India will be familiar with how captains can be in trouble after a loss to Pakistan, but fortunately for Ponting that is not the case in Australia.

Gameplan

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