England's Worst-Ever Series Performance

I reached sporting consciousness in time to hear about England's so-called "greatest side to ever leave these shores" being thrashed 4-0 by Benaud's Australians in the 1958-59 series. This set the pattern for a decade of Ashes heartbreak and we've had plenty of ups and downs ever since.
But no doubt many would agree that this last series was THE WORST SERIES PERFORMANCE EVER. The reasons:
1. Thrashed in every match;
2. An apparent lack of fight;
3. Ouplayed in every department;
4. Inability to consolidate the few promising positions they got into;
5. Melbourne the worst of all - around 220 ahead with five wickets left and still getting well beaten;
6. So few redeeming features - Stokes, Broad's bowling and that's about it.
We've had whitewashes before. But even during those series there was something to hold on to. I am just glad the crushing, depressing, heartbreaking and awful series is over and I can get some sleep and buy newspapers again. It's pretty safe to say that we could go to Australia in the future and lose all five Tests heavily and still consider that to be a better series than this dreadful last 2013/14 "effort".

This was bad...............very bad.

http://static.espncricinfo.com/db/ARCHIVE/1980S/1985-86/ENG_IN_WI/

This series (and watching how the batsmen couldn't cope with pace bowling) reminded me a heck of a lot of the series V West Indies in the 80s. Pathetic resistance, batsmen like rabbits caught in the headlights and very little hope and from an early stage of the series very little hope.

Yes Stella exactly my point.

Stella wrote:This was bad...............very bad.

http://static.espncricinfo.com/db/ARCHIVE/1980S/1985-86/ENG_IN_WI/

Yeah that was pretty bad. But at least the WIndies were, by far, the best team in the world at that time, and had been for a number of years.
The thing that really disappointed about this series is that this Australia are not (as yet), a great team. That's not to say that they didn't play really, really well, but they were not viewed, going into this series, as being any better (and probably worse) than England.

Agree that some of the performances v the Windies were fairly awful but as has been said, WI were a great side.
What would be interesting to see is if England have ever made so few runs in a 5-Test series. Praps some stats guy can come up with the answer, with allowance made for some of the awful 19th century pitches.

Hoggy_Bear wrote:

Stella wrote:This was bad...............very bad.

http://static.espncricinfo.com/db/ARCHIVE/1980S/1985-86/ENG_IN_WI/

Yeah that was pretty bad. But at least the WIndies were, by far, the best team in the world at that time, and had been for a number of years.
The thing that really disappointed about this series is that this Australia are not (as yet), a great team. That's not to say that they didn't play really, really well, but they were not viewed, going into this series, as being any better (and probably worse) than England.

Agree there. Us losing 5-0 was no shock, as they had just beaten us 5-0 in 1984. This tour is without doubt (in my mind) the worst in the 30 odd years I have been watching.

sirfredperry wrote:Agree that some of the performances v the Windies were fairly awful but as has been said, WI were a great side.
  What would be interesting to see is if England have ever made so few runs in a 5-Test series. Praps some stats guy can come up with the answer, with allowance made for some of the awful 19th century pitches.

Without double checking, I think we made less on that 85-86 tour.

Hoggy_Bear wrote:

Stella wrote:This was bad...............very bad.

http://static.espncricinfo.com/db/ARCHIVE/1980S/1985-86/ENG_IN_WI/

Yeah that was pretty bad. But at least the WIndies were, by far, the best team in the world at that time, and had been for a number of years.
The thing that really disappointed about this series is that this Australia are not (as yet), a great team. That's not to say that they didn't play really, really well, but they were not viewed, going into this series, as being any better (and probably worse) than England.

Fully agree. I don't see that any of Johnson, Harris, Siddle and Lyon (even bowling really, really well as they did in this series) would have been selected for these West Indies teams had they been eligible.

guildfordbat wrote:

Hoggy_Bear wrote:

Stella wrote:This was bad...............very bad.

http://static.espncricinfo.com/db/ARCHIVE/1980S/1985-86/ENG_IN_WI/

Yeah that was pretty bad. But at least the WIndies were, by far, the best team in the world at that time, and had been for a number of years.
The thing that really disappointed about this series is that this Australia are not (as yet), a great team. That's not to say that they didn't play really, really well, but they were not viewed, going into this series, as being any better (and probably worse) than England.

Fully agree. I don't see that any of Johnson, Harris, Siddle and Lyon (even bowling really, really well as they did in this series) would have been selected for these West Indies teams had they been eligible.

Patterson was quick, but a little inconsistent. IMO, all three Aussies are better than he was.

As bad as anything I have seen certainly. A couple of mitigating factors that are hope are not forgotten about though (these are no excuses, it was abject stuff but I think they need looking at):

Scheduling back to back Ashes. Should never have happened and hope it never happens again. I don't blame the players for feeling less than motivated having just worked hard to win the home series.

Back to back to back to back Tests. Pointless if we want to see good cricket as there is no chance for players to find form between Tests. Certainly England have benefitted from this themselves (the 4-0 vs India, for example) but I would rather a team going say one or two down has a realistic chance to turn things round.

VTR. It's not going to get much better next summer, either, schedule-wise.
We have seven Tests crammed into a few weeks in June-Aug. May Tests (which England normally win) are out so as not to clash with IPL and so we have a ridiculous schedule.
And the Australians? Back here again in summer 2015 !

Oh dear, didn't realise they were now cramming 7 Tests into 12 weeks, its just milking the cash cow.

The Aussies back in 2015 is a travesty, people are not stupid and will start voting with their feet sooner rather than later.

First up back-to-back Ashes was crazy and pointless.

However, I am all for longer test series as test cricket (from my point of view) is the absolute pinnacle of the sport producing cricket that tests nerve, technique, fitness and has many swings of momentum making for enthralling viewing.
More tests and far less ODI's and Twenty-20 for me has the shorter formats I can watch but hold far less appeal. Wickets can be got by far poorer deliveries when run rates rise and so figures are diluted somewhat.

I would like to see a return of the ODI's played before the Test series - allows the touring players to adapt to conditions and might actually be interesting to watch. Series of 5 matches max though, not 7/9/17 whatever it is now.

Then a couple of warm up matches vs decent opposition, not a County youth second X1. Another 2 or 3 competitive matches during the Test series.

Sadly none of this will happen

Two T20's, on the same day, three ODI's and three - five tests. That format suits me.

This one certainly feels like one of the worst - the lack of fight, the clumps of brainless dismissals, the disintegration of the lower order.

The worst I've ever seen in my young life at any rate.

At least the 5-0 in 2006 was against an all-time great Australian side, something which this Australia clearly aren't.

Not the worst but this series was a disappointing one for England.

http://static.espncricinfo.com/db/ARCHIVE/1980S/1986/IND_IN_ENG/

The mid 80's, Australia apart was a big low for England back, what with the 'blackwashes' defeats to India and New Zealand, and Pakistan in 1987.

The difference here is we know many of the players in that side are capabl if so much more, and what te Aussie bowlers were in fire their batting line up is brittle. Only one player averaged over 40 with the bat before the first test and he was hampered by a back injury.
This was pretty much the same England side that won in Australia only a few years ago against what on paper was a stronger line up.
They were favourites to win.
Such a capitulation was expected in much of the period I first started following cricket in, although even at their nadir we didnt see England get nilled that often and not always by such huge margins if defeat.

When you combine what this side was capable of, the quality of th opposition and the sheer scale of defeat it really has to rank up there with the worst ashes series ever.

Over reaction? Maybe ... No more so than the Aussies calling their team " the worst Australian side ever" only a few months ago.

Similar to the two Indian series in the 80's, but we beat them in their backyard, then got beat easily back home. Not as bad as this ashes loss, but a shocking result, nonetheless.