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England’s cricketers: good but not invincible

The test series whitewash of India shows England are a good team, but they haven’t got the aura of a great team.

Duleep Allirajah

Topics Politics

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The England cricket team are No.1 in the test rankings after completing a ruthless four-nil series whitewash against India. Top of the pile in the five-day format, but how good is the current England side? In an

Look, I’m not trying to knock ‘our boys’. I think what Andy Flower and Andrew Strauss have achieved is fantastic. The transformation since the wretched five-nil Ashes whitewash in 2005-6 speaks volumes. The biggest difference is the winning mentality that has been instilled. There’s a self-belief and hunger to succeed that was absent even when England won the Ashes in 2005. England’s reaction to beating the once-mighty Australians was telling. We celebrated like lottery winners who couldn’t believe our luck. The players were showered with gongs, feted with an open-top bus parade and a Downing Street reception. The team went on what journalist Martin Samuel described as a ‘year-long lap of honour’ and were soundly walloped in Australia.

Over-celebration and premature decoration was symptomatic of the absence of a winning mentality. Compare that with Andrew Strauss’s more understated reaction to England’s victory in the final test against India. ‘The greatest pitfall is feeling that we’ve done it all and that we’re not willing to put in the hard work to continue it. I’d be very disappointed if our side fell into that trap’, said Strauss. ‘Rightly we should celebrate the fact that we’ve had a fantastic summer but we’re always looking forward to the next challenge.’ Strauss’s words are reminiscent of Roy Keane, who was never content to bask in title-winning glory but was always looking ahead to the next tournament.

‘The mark of a folklore side is to be held universally in awe’, said veteran Times cricket correspondent John Woodcock this week. England are admired and respected but are they feared? Is the bowling attack, for instance, more terrifying than the West Indies pace attack of the Eighties or the legendary Australian strike force of Lillee and Thomson? I don’t think so. Nor does this England side yet possess the aura of invincibility which surrounds the greatest test sides. Andrew Strauss has spoken about how the Aussies of old had an aura which gave them a psychological advantage over their opponents. ‘An aura is when the opposition teams, even though they are on top, are not confident they are going to beat you’, explained Strauss in 2009.

There’s nothing mystical about acquiring such an aura. Teams that very seldom get beaten eventually appear invincible. And that’s what England have to do: continue to win cricket matches at home and abroad consistently for the next few years. Only then we can start using the G-word about this England cricket team.

Duleep Allirajah is spiked’s sports columnist.

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