Why Did England Lose The Ashes This Year? (2006/7)

England received a whitewash against Australia in the recent Ashes series. The reason was that their best  player of the last Ashes series Andrew Flintoff did not live up to the expectations of the team. Otherwise Australia too played really well with Shane Warne , Ricky Ponting and Glenn Mcragth in their side.

England lost the Ashes to Australia in a humiliating manner with the 5-0 whitewash being only the second time in history that a team has lost with that margin in the Ashes.

The reasons for the defeat could be several but one of the major factors that seem to have undermined the England team if compared to their magnificent victory in the earlier Ashes series that took place in England is the absence of players due to injury like Michael Vaughan who besides his astute captaincy was also instrumental in scoring runs and Simon Jones who provided the breakthroughs last time around and was one of the leading wicket taker in the entire series.

Also the responsibility of captaincy seemed to have affected Andrew Flintoff's performance as a player on the basis of which England had won the Ashes last time around. Another cause could be the unfamiliar conditions as most of the players were playing in Australia for the first time.

From the Australian perspective the team was in great form with the players like Warne, McGrath and Langer who were on their swansong not to mention skipper Ricky Ponting, Mike Hussey and Adam Gilchrist among others turning up with inspired performances when required. Player wise the Australian side was vastly experienced as compared to the English team and was playing at home which resulted in a comprehensive victory for the home team.