Which side is better?!

With the double Ashes success of the current England side, I was wondering if they were better than the 2005 Ashes winning side. The current side have achieved more but arguably against weaker opposition, so with only Bell, Strauss and Kp surviving who would win should they play each other at their prime.

Current
1 Strauss (c)
2 Cook
3 Trott
4 Kp
5 Bell
6 Morgan
7 Prior (wk)
8 Broad
9 Swann
10 Anderson
11 Tremlett

2005
1 Trescothick
2 Strauss
3 Vaughn (c)
4 Bell
5 Kp
6 Flintoff
7 Jones (wk)
8 Giles
9 Hoggard
10 Jones
11 Harmison

So which is better

i think its too hard to choose between them

It's hard to say really.

The current England side have the advantage in the batting but the 2005 side have the advantage in the bowling.

If I was forced to pick one I would be edged towards the current side. After the Ashes 2005 the England side didn't really accomplish much from then on. While the current side has won world T20,top 3 test team and beaten the Aussies on the home turf.

I think I would also edge towards the current side but it is difficult to compare what they have achieved, certainly a better batting unit that are all capable of scoring runs and a better spinner, but no recoginised all rounder and the seamers are not as good.

MR. scotland27 wrote:I think I would also edge towards the current side but it is difficult to compare what they have achieved, certainly a better batting unit that are all capable of scoring runs and a better spinner, but no recoginised all rounder and the seamers are not as good.

England don't have a genuine all-rounder but have players down the order who are very capable batters in Swann,Broad and Bresnan (when back in the side).

England have a inexperienced seam attack which can be there downfall. They sometimes need to rely just on one player while the team back in 05 all worked brilliantly in a unit.

I think it is fair to say:

Batsmen from now+ Bowlers from 05+ Swann=World Domination

If you were picking a composite XI, I think it might look something like this:

05' - Strauss
11' - Cook
11' - Trott
05' - KP
11' - Bell
05' - Flintoff
11' - Prior
11' - Swann
05' - Jones
05' - Harmison
11' - Anderson

That makes it 6-5 to the current side, but witha few touch and go calls like whether the 05' Strauss is better than the 11' Strauss. This actually surprised me quite a lot as I always consider the 05' vintage to be superior to this team now, but that may change if they beat India and make their way to number one in the world.

The cureent side have been playing good cricket pretty much since the last home Ashes series which is coming up on two years now but for me, the clincher for the 05' side is the fact they beat the better level of opposition. They went to SA and beat them in their own backyard 2-1, and it could have been more comfortable aswell and then they beat one of the best sides ever to play Test Cricket in one of the best series ever.

So, for me, 05' > 11'.

Have to agre with most of that but I wold have Trescothick in instead of Strauss as he is still the best opener in England, his career in general is such a shame.

I did consider putting Trescothick in, but one of the opening spots has to be taken by Cook with the from he is in at the moment so that leaves us with both incarnations of Strauss and Trescothick.

I turned against Trescothick just because I was mainly thinking of the 05' Ashes series and Tres never got the runs he should have against the Aussies. Arguably he set the tone for England's comeback in that series with his 90 at Edgbaston, but Straus got two tons in that series though so I went for him. If you are looking at the bigger picture I certainly wouldn 't dispute anyone putting Tres in though.

JDizzle wrote:I did consider putting Trescothick in, but one of the opening spots has to be taken by Cook with the from he is in at the moment so that leaves us with both incarnations of Strauss and Trescothick.

I turned against Trescothick just because I was mainly thinking of the 05' Ashes series and Tres never got the runs he should have against the Aussies. Arguably he set the tone for England's comeback in that series with his 90 at Edgbaston, but Straus got two tons in that series though so I went for him. If you are looking at the bigger picture I certainly wouldn 't dispute anyone putting Tres in though.

If your basing it on the Ashes 05 I would have Trescothick over Strauss.Trescothick got more runs and was more consistent. Strauss got them two centurys but didn't do much apart from that.

My composite team would look something like

11 Strauss (capt) - basically for his captaincy, batting is similar
11 Cook
11 Trott
05 KP
11 Bell
05 Flintoff
11 Prior
11 Swann
05 Harmison
05 Jones
11 Anderson

Basically our batting is better than it was back then, but our bowling was a stronger unit in 05, though it's still very good now (Harmison vs Broad/Tremlett was a tough call). On the whole I actually think this side is better.