How good is this England side?

Clearly, the current England side is one of the best we've had in recent times, but just how good is it compared with the teams from the past (I'm interested in discussing them as complete teams or at least as batting and bowling units, not so much on a player by player basis):

Batting -
Strauss is a solid opener and good captain, although does go through prolonged slumps in form
Cook is the best traditional opener in the world at the moment
Trott may not be exciting but is a hugely effective #3
Pieterson: Dangerous but infuriatingly inconsistent, adds needed aggression after a more steady top 3
Bell: Hugely improved the mental side of his game to now match his technical ability
Morgan: Still unproven. Perhaps a weak link (at least compared with Collingwood)
Prior: A keeper who is keeping well and getting runs like a specialist batsman
Broad / Swann: Able to chip in with handy runs in the lower order.

So overall the batting is very solid, with a good mix of steady players and more rapid run scorers.

Bowling:
Swann: Best spinner in the world at the moment and best England have had since probably Underwood
Anderson: Very good seam and swing bowler now.
Tremlett: Consistent 'back of a length' bowler
Broad: Still a bit of a work in progress. Hopefully has his confidence back to bowl fairly quickly and mostly to a full length, which is when he is most effective.

Again, good to very good players and a nice balance to the seam attack (although this suffers if Anderson is missing).

So the question is: Have England ever been able to field a better team?

Ashes 2005: Perhaps stronger in the seam bowling department (helped by Flintoff being an all rounder), maybe equal in batting but G Jones and Giles not as good as Prior and Swann.

1950s / 1960s: Had some outstanding batsmen (Edritch, Cowdrey, Barrington etc), dangerous quicks (Truman, Snow) and quality spin bowlers (Laker and Locke, and eventually Underwood), but was any one team as well balanced as the current one?

I can't seem at present to find any team lists, but the only ones I can think of that might challenge are from the Sutcliffe and Hobbs era in the late 1920s and early 1930s, and I'm only really thinking that based on my father's recollections.

So yeah, this is a balanced and powerful team, with resources to spare in many areas.

IMO its the best England side I've seen (Going back to earliest memories of 1996 ish)

The ashes 05 team was good but that was one series.

Gregers
If you only remember back to the 90s (or latter part of the 80s), there certainly have only been two good England teams - 05 and the current one. Before the late 90s we were a pretty abject bunch of random selections.

Even the 1981 team wasn't all that much cop, we were just against a pretty ropey Aussie line up and had moments of individual heroics from Botham and Willis that made for a memorable series.

The start of this series has proved how good England really are.

Liam_Main wrote:The start of this series has proved how good England really are.

And we will find out in the next 2 tests, how TRULLY good England really are.

Perhaps the BBC are stalking me?

Major discussion on the website and on TMS over lunch. Their consensus seemed to be that so far this team is not as good as the one of the 50s, but will deserve to go to number 1 in the rankings.l

When this team have shown they can win on spin friendly wickets we shall know more.

This England team is a good side but it's a long way from being a great side. I've seen a few of those and they beat all the others most of the time and learn a few different ways to do it on the way.

we are fanfrigiintastic1

Its difficult to judge which is best over a long period of time but surely a team containning batters like Hutton, May, Edrich, Barrington, Compton, Cowdrey a keeper like Evans spinners like Laker, Wardle and Loch and pacemen like Trueman, Tyson, Statham and an allrounder like Bailey would be a little better than our current crop.

Having said that England 2011 are strong in all areas, are the best in the world at the moment for sure and definately be much better in the field.

The best thing about this team though is not how good the players in the team are, its how good the ones not in the team are, namely before the series started Bresnan and Finn in the bowling and Taylor, Bopara and Hildreth in the batting.

activereactive wrote:

Liam_Main wrote:The start of this series has proved how good England really are.

And we will find out in the next 2 tests, how TRULLY good England really are.

I think we have seen now....

India are certainly making them look better than they really are.
They are not 200 runs and innings bettr than the next bst side in the world despite this series

we are defo turning into a world class side.

Another edcord broken...most 100+ stands in a summer by England, off only 5 tests some of which have been rain shortened.
Its quite incredible just how much they have dominated some of these gaves over the last year.

we are an incredibly good side!