England Rising from the ashes

Can England regain the ashes? Well you ask me, Kevin Pietersen’s  outfit have looked impressive in the One day internationals against the South Africans but make no mistake the South Africans did not play to their full potential and deserved to get the whitewash and were lucky to be saved at Cardiff by the rain.

On the other hand Looking at the positives, England now have a fast and fiery pace attack with Broad, Harmison and Anderson who have all been impressive in the One day internationals while Anderson, Broad and the returning Harmison also impressed in the Test arena which is vital as having a great bowling attack is vital to winning matches, just look at the Aussies with McGrath, Clarke and Warne bowling superbly in the 5-0 whitewash in 2006.

The main question that England may have to answer is, can Kevin Pietersen deliver as a captain against the Aussies, yes he has made an impressive start to his captaincy with 5 wins out of 6 with one no result, the win/loss column makes for happy reading at the moment for England.

But once again can England win an ashes with a flair player at the helm, Kevin Pietersen is under immense pressure next year he is the one under the spotlight and he has to perform will KP live up to the pressure or crack under it? Lets look an example of a Flair player in charge of the 2006 Ashes. Flintoff's own play in the series, both bowling and at the crease was generally deemed disappointing. He made only two scores over 50 in the series, his best bowling figures were 4/99 in the first innings of the First Test in Brisbane, and he failed to get 5 wickets in a match and even though he managed to pull back some creditability with the One day win Flintoff’s captaincy was still a failure.

Let’s look at their opponents now the Aussies the best team in the world and continue to produce the best cricket even without players like Warne, McGrath and Gilchrist. The Aussies line-up will contain a few unfamiliar faces but by no means does this mean that England have a better chance of winning, Shane Warne may have retired but with Cameron White leg-spin even though he is not as potent as Warne he can cause a lot of problems and he is also a more dangerous player with his bat that the English people will know from his time at Somerset and remember that the Australians only have the small threat of Ponting  and Hussey to contend with, so good luck to England because they will need it.

We wanted to talk to some England supporters so I was at my School and deciding to gauge opinions from students: Laurence Thorn who watches cricket says that he thinks that “Australia will retain the Ashes with a drawn series”, Laurence thinks that “Kevin Pietersen has motivated the players but is eager to discover if Pietersen can succeed against the Australians.”

We also spoke to Glen Righelato who has had trials at Middlesex CCC, his opinion on this subject is   “Being a viewer of the ashes, seeing the highs and lows and seeing Michael Vaughn’s achievements and wondering has Kevin Pietersen got the experience to cope with the pressure of the ashes, Australia are a different kettle of fish, Australia are like Piranhas one mistake and they will eat you alive.”