Reason for Englands recent success
Of late England has been in the midst of a winning spree and the recent result to go in England's favour has been its T20 win against Pakistan at Cardiff on 5th September 2010. England more known as a nation for its skills in Tests won cruised to a win in a format which is alien to them. England scored surpassed Pakistan'smodest 126 with 17 deliveries to spare.
England's record in the last 4 to years have been very impressive especially in test matches and there are reasons for that. The primary reason for England's success has been the fact that most nations except India are going through a transition change in Tests having lost their star players due to retirements or having them dropped due to poor form. Let us take for example Australia easily the best team in the world for about two decades are struggling to compete even against a second or third string Pakistan team. The retirements of Adam Gilchrist, Steve Waugh, Shane Warne and Mathew Hayden have depleted Australia very badly than any other team. Pakistan team has never been the same after once legends Wasim Akram and Waqar Youinis called it a day. The retirements of legends like Shaun Pollock and Allan Donald have taken the sting out of the South African attack.
England who were languishing in the lowerhalf among Test playing nations suddenly find themselves in the top half and among Test playing countries only India and Sri Lanka have teams that can defeat England. The reason why India and Sri Lanka are better than England is the fact that both the countries have senior players at the peak of their powers. While Indians have Sachin Tendulkar, Virender Sehwag, Rahul Dravid and V V S Laxman the Lankans have Kumara Sangakkara, Mahela Jayawardene and company and a few others who are just about to peak. In a couple of years England should be serious challengers for the top spot in ICC rankings as the star trio of Sachin, Dravid and Laxman should be calling it quits.
Apart from the fact that England find itself in a advantageous position playing depleted teams another thing which has been in their favour is the fact that their players were never under any pressure from the media and that has helped their cause. Even in an era when England had players like Michael Vaughan and Alec Stewart they had never to play under the media glare which their counterparts of other nations like Sachin, Gilchrist, Sehwag, Warne and Akram were put to. Their batsmen without being extraordinary have contributed their 40 plus scores towards the team on a consistent basis while their bowlers though not known for ripping through batting line ups have got timely wickets to win matches. England were never known for whitewashing teams like Aussies or Windies though they achieved that for a brief while during Vaughan's captaincy but were capable enough to win the occasionalmatches and series. One perfect example of England's capabilities have been their 3-1 test series win against Pakistan in which they managed to top 400 in the series once once and yet they won the series comfortably. The likes of Anderson and Broad cannot be compared to Wasim Akram or a Waqar Youinis but what what matters most they are winning matches for England.
The current team is nowhere close to the England team which had the likes of Graham Gooch, David Gower and Ian Botham. The 2005 Ashes team lead by Michael Vaughan had far better players and current team is not even good to be referred to as a England "A" team but what is important in the current scenario in international cricket they are producing the results and that is what matters in the end as crcket archives show only matches won and lost and that is what matters in the end.
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