I could have blogged about how well the England cricket team were doing down in Australia a few weeks ago, but that would have been tempting fate. The fickle finger of fate has seen to it that an English defeat has been snatched from the jaws of certain victory too many times on previous occasions. And oddly, I'm a very superstitious cricket fan, so silence was the best option. Any crowing ahead of the final result would almost certainly have mucked things up for the Andrew Strauss and team.
But now, with a 3-1 victory in the bag, the Ashes retained, nay won again, I can talk about it. What a result, my goodness, I never thought that I'd see such a result in my lifetime, let alone such a turnaround in 5 or so years. Considering it was 2005 when we received a 5-0 drubbing, this is remarkable.
Some would say that it's due to Australia no longer having the side that it did and there's a grain of truth in that. However, even if Warne, McGrath, Lee, Gilchrist, Hayden & Langer had been in the Australian side this time, England would have prevailed. It would have been a closer series, but England would still have the ashes, no doubt. They are now a unit to be feared - ruthless, determined and focused like no other English test side I've ever seen. As a result this was a drubbing, a white-wash. Australia only had opportunities when England failed and that only happened on maybe two days. Those two days lost England a test, but it was the only opportunity Australia had, we allowed them that through our failure, not their expertise and capability.
It's interesting to note that 6 out of 11 England players were there in the 2006/7 5-0 series defeat. Flintoff, Giles, Harmison, Hoggard & Jones are not in the side in 2010/11, but no-one can say that those players weren't world class in 2006/7. So, what is the difference?
This is where I can justify blogging about cricket on a IT management blog. I believe it's down to the leadership and preparation. In 2006/7, we had a leader who was not really a leader (Flintoff), more a lieutenant. The management team was not as cohesive and the individual players were not well managed - take Harmison, widely reported as suffering homesickness and lacking the desire to play overseas, he never really recovered from that first ball of the first innings of the first test. Careful management and leadership would have helped, but I don't believe Flintoff had the characteristics or tools to enable him to provide that support. As a consequence once things were going wrong, there was no recovery mechanism or understanding of how to recover things. So, the series was lost.
The Flowers/Strauss team has shown how important it is to have a cohesive team driving a strategy that's clear and understood by everyone with everyone pushing hard to deliver that strategy. That's not only the on-field team, but also the back-room team, everyone. Everyone knew what had to be done and drove hard at getting there, working together, supporting each other, individuals stepping up to deliver the goods when someone else couldn't.
Ah, enough of the analysis, what a result. What a brilliant, amazing result. Well done, lads! Thank you!!
But now, with a 3-1 victory in the bag, the Ashes retained, nay won again, I can talk about it. What a result, my goodness, I never thought that I'd see such a result in my lifetime, let alone such a turnaround in 5 or so years. Considering it was 2005 when we received a 5-0 drubbing, this is remarkable.
Some would say that it's due to Australia no longer having the side that it did and there's a grain of truth in that. However, even if Warne, McGrath, Lee, Gilchrist, Hayden & Langer had been in the Australian side this time, England would have prevailed. It would have been a closer series, but England would still have the ashes, no doubt. They are now a unit to be feared - ruthless, determined and focused like no other English test side I've ever seen. As a result this was a drubbing, a white-wash. Australia only had opportunities when England failed and that only happened on maybe two days. Those two days lost England a test, but it was the only opportunity Australia had, we allowed them that through our failure, not their expertise and capability.
It's interesting to note that 6 out of 11 England players were there in the 2006/7 5-0 series defeat. Flintoff, Giles, Harmison, Hoggard & Jones are not in the side in 2010/11, but no-one can say that those players weren't world class in 2006/7. So, what is the difference?
This is where I can justify blogging about cricket on a IT management blog. I believe it's down to the leadership and preparation. In 2006/7, we had a leader who was not really a leader (Flintoff), more a lieutenant. The management team was not as cohesive and the individual players were not well managed - take Harmison, widely reported as suffering homesickness and lacking the desire to play overseas, he never really recovered from that first ball of the first innings of the first test. Careful management and leadership would have helped, but I don't believe Flintoff had the characteristics or tools to enable him to provide that support. As a consequence once things were going wrong, there was no recovery mechanism or understanding of how to recover things. So, the series was lost.
The Flowers/Strauss team has shown how important it is to have a cohesive team driving a strategy that's clear and understood by everyone with everyone pushing hard to deliver that strategy. That's not only the on-field team, but also the back-room team, everyone. Everyone knew what had to be done and drove hard at getting there, working together, supporting each other, individuals stepping up to deliver the goods when someone else couldn't.
Ah, enough of the analysis, what a result. What a brilliant, amazing result. Well done, lads! Thank you!!
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