Steve Waugh: ruthless England setting the standard

http://www.abc.net.au/news/2011-09-28/england-setting-the-standards-now3a-waugh/3025286

Now he says the current England side under captain Andrew Strauss reminds him of Australia during its heyday.


They are a quality professional side who want to dismantle the opposition and win as quickly as they can," Waugh told Sky Sports News.

He also thinks that Clarke will expedite Australia's rise back up the rankings and that the schedule wasn't to blame for India's horror tour of England.

"I think it's a pretty lame excuse from India," he said.

I don't know if England will ever reach the lofty heights of ruthlessness that Steve Waugh achieved whilst Captain Conservative is in charge.

It wasn't the schedule that f*cked India. He's right. They can cling onto that if they want, but it won't help them in the future. I liked the 'tired' angle... "ooh, we's hads the IPLs. We's hads to bowl four overs 14 times. We's had to bat for 20s balls, 14s times. We's knackered." Get over it faaggots.

I'm loving the hard-as-nails Engulund. Great to see. Jimmeh's hilarious sledging of Midge and Paris was great theatre.

Now if Aus can lift their game, Ashes 2013 may be a grouse contest.

Aye would be good to see a proper contest with two well-oiled machines. The last time will be getting on for 7 years by the time it happens(if it does).

Yeah, 2005 was the classic. Although 2009 wasn't too foul. That was definitely one that got away for Aus.

2009 had two pretty average teams up against each other. Neither team really amounted to much, but England stumbled across the line. 2010/11 had one very good team and one average team up against each other.

Nonsense. What we all want to see is infinite re-runs of 2010-11.

Swinging it to the left, swinging it to the right. Headless Oz selections, and clueless G&G skippering. Panic in the Baggy Green top order. Mental disintegration of the Good Guys.

LAAARVVVLEEEEEEEE!!

Yeah, it wasn't bad, 2009.

England produced a smash-and-grab in that one IMO. Both teams were prone to total shitness at times which made it fall out of my criteria.

PeterCS wrote:Nonsense. What we all want to see is infinite re-runs of 2010-11.

Swinging it to the left, swinging it to the right. Headless Oz selections, and clueless G&G skippering. Panic in the Baggy Green top order. Mental disintegration of the Good Guys.

LAAARVVVLEEEEEEEE!!

Too bloody right!!!

I want 18 years of dumping on Australia from a great height and being given whats for!

...with the odd close test that England pull out of the bag despite it looking like Aus will win....just to piss them off!

Brass Monkey wrote:Get over it faaggots.

Fcuking truth. When England players said they were tired from playing all year round they were (rightly) told to suck it up. It's about time these losers did the same.

Or.......SKIP THE IPL FOR THE SAKE OF THE NATIONAL TEAM!!!!!


It's not like they really need the extra money.

Dominance can get boring quite fast, IMO. I mean, the only reason I didn't kill myself at the mundanity of Aus thrashing everyone was because they were so chockablock full of arrogant, uber-bullish cockwads that the hatred spurred me on to hope against hope some team would pull off a blinder against them.

Yes, of course. I was egging the pudding bigtime.

Why? It's f*ck all - 14 T20s. F*ck all. As I say it's, what, a max of 56 overs in a month. 56!!!! The England bowlers would bowl that in 5 days (given some semblance of resilient opposition), given that they do 5-7 overs before play anyway. They don't cry their f*cking eyes out about it. For a batsman, it shouldn't matter at all. Cook batted about 10 full T20 innings in the winter, I didn't see him snivelling like a beaten pet.

Brass Monkey wrote:Dominance can get boring quite fast, IMO. I mean, the only reason I didn't kill myself at the mundanity of Aus thrashing everyone was because they were so chockablock full of arrogant, uber-bullish cockwads that the hatred spurred me on to hope against hope some team would pull off a blinder against them.

Word. I can't wait for England to be sh!t again. Ever Hopeful's been kicking my arse lately.

I really like how their is lots of competition for top spot now. SA and England are the 2 best teams to me, and personally I feel SA has the better players, but suck big time in terms of attitude. Until we get a winning mentality, we're going to struggle. Meanwhile England will be better even though imo they have a worse side on paper.

I think our fast bowling reserves are better. I wouldn't rate Parnell's or Tsotsobe's chances of getting in our side - and welcome to the forum by the way.

Reserves: yes, probably.
However, Steyn and Morkel coupled with Tsotsobe is still a better 3 pronged pace attack than any three you can put together imo.

Steyn, yes, Morkel, debatable, Tsotsobe, get out of town.

Any three from Anderson, Broad, Tremlett, Finn, Bresnan, Onions is a pretty strong attack - especially when you throw in a quality spinner in Swann.

I'm talking about the attack as a whole- Steyn is miles ahead of anyone in the world, Morkel is better than anything you have too (you English haven't seen him for a while, he has recently become someone who is definitely the closest in the world to Steyn's standard). Tsotsobe isn't great but decent enough to back up the first two. Swann is quality, no argument there.

There's no debate that Steyn is the standout bowler in world cricket.

Morkel might well have developed since I last saw him, but a number of English bowlers have kicked on too - not least Stuart Broad, who had by far and away the best series of his career against India.

I guess, we'll have to wait and see! I'm incredibly keen for SA-Eng!

We all are. That's why it's so depressing that the ECB have decided on a three match Test series. Should've been a five match series.

Four at the very least.