History of The England Cricket Team From 1945 - 2000s

2000s

Hussain's side was unable to avoid defeat in South Africa, yet his first series victory, against Zimbabwe the following summer, saw the side winning their next three test series. This included the side's first victory against the West Indies in 32 years, impressive wins in Pakistan, where Thorpe and Hussain helped see the side to victory in the dark in Karachi and a 2-1 defeat of Sri Lanka, where England displayed a new-found confidence of playing against spin bowling, a move instigated by their new coach Duncan Fletcher. However, the ultimate test for the side against Australia showed that England were still found wanting against the very best, losing 4-1.

Injuries and retirements from the side over the next year allowed new players to come into the side. Out went Atherton, Hick, Ramprakash, Gough, Cork, Tufnell and Andrew Caddick and in came Marcus Trescothick, Michael Vaughan, Andrew Flintoff, Matthew Hoggard, Simon Jones, Stephen Harmison and Ashley Giles. Hussain looked to create a side which was harder to beat and would often rule with an uncompromising attitude. Changes which the game had long needed were made, with central contracts limiting how much county cricket the players could play and the establishment of an academy. Encouraging performances by players like Vaughan, Trescothick and Hoggard against India and Sri Lanka did give England some positive sentiments towards their chances against Australia, yet a 4-1 defeat against possibly the greatest team ever showed that they were still falling short. This and England's withdrawal from a 2003 Cricket World Cup match in Zimbabwe led to Hussain becoming disillusioned with the job.

After the first Test of the 5 Test series against South Africa was drawn, Nasser Hussain resigned the Test captaincy, with Michael Vaughan being appointed in his stead. Vaughan went on to draw the series 2-2, after an Oval Test match rated by most commentators as the greatest in England since the 1981 Headingley Test. By the time of the tour in early 2004 to the West Indies, Vaughan had settled into his position as captain and was seen as an inspirational leader, who was respected by his players. This newly found confidence in the team led the side to a 3-0 victory in the Caribbean, followed by whitewashes over New Zealand and the West Indies at home, with players such as Harmison and Flintoff becoming amongst the very best in the world.

On 21 December 2004 England completed their eighth successive Test victory with a win in the opening Test against South Africa at Port Elizabeth, the best sequence of Test match wins by England and the team were able to complete their first away victory over their opponents since they were re-admitted to the game in 1991.

Coming into the 2005 Ashes series, England had moved up to second, having won 14 and drawn 3 of their 18 previous Test matches since March 2004, raising hopes that the series would be closely fought. The Ashes series had a long build up, with England and Australia playing a triangular ODI series with Bangladesh, with the final England-Australia match ending in a tie (not a draw), prior to a second one day series between England and Australia won 2-1 by Australia.

Australia won the first Test at Lord's comfortably, but England came back to win the second Test at Edgbaston with a two run victory, the narrowest win by runs in Ashes history. The third Test ended in a draw, with one day having been lost to rain and England one wicket away from victory. England then narrowly won the fourth Test in Nottingham by three wickets after forcing the Australians to follow on. In the fifth and final Test at the Oval in London England came in to the final day needing to avoid a defeat with a lead of 40 runs and one wicket down, and batted until well after the tea interval to ensure the game would end a draw and England would regain the Ashes 2-1.

In the first Test series (versus Pakistan) after The Ashes triumph (in November/December 2005) England came down to earth with a bump. In the first Test match in Multan England squandered a strong position (first innings lead of 144) to eventually lose the match by 22 runs. The second Test at Faisalabad was drawn with Pakistan pressing hard for victory. In the final Test at Lahore England collapsed again to lose by an innings and 100 runs (their first innings defeat for two years).

A test series against India followed in March 2006 with Andrew Flintoff as captain. After the first Test match was drawn due to bad light on the final day, India came back strongly to win the 2nd test but England showed true character to come back and win the third (their first Test Match win in India for 21 years) without five key players, including skipper Michael Vaughan and vice-captain Marcus Trescothick to level the three-game series. Although Trescothick returned for the three Test series against Sri Lanka in England, Flintoff retained the captaincy in the absence of Vaughan. England went on to draw the first test match despite taking a commanding lead after the first innings, England won the second test match but lost the third to tie the series 1-1.

With Flintoff now also absent through injury, England had yet another new captain in Andrew Strauss for the subsequent one-day series with Sri Lanka. After narrowly losing the one-off Twenty20 international, England then lost all five of the One-day Internationals, not helped by wayward bowling and further injuries. Strauss remained captain for the start of the Test series with Pakistan which followed. After the first match was drawn, Strauss was given the captaincy for the rest of the series when Flintoff was ruled out for the rest of the season, and under Strauss the side went on to win back-to-back tests at Old Trafford and Headingley and take an unassailable lead in the four-match series. The final test at The Oval ended in farce when umpires Darrell Hair and Billy Doctrove awarded five runs to England after ruling that Pakistan had tampered with the ball. Pakistan refused to leave the pavilion after tea and the umpires removed the bails, signifying that Pakistan had forfeited the match. Pakistan later took to the field, only for the umpires to stay in the pavilion. After a night of heated discussions, it was eventually agreed that the test had been correctly awarded to England, handing them a 3-0 series win.

Flintoff was awarded the captaincy for the 2006/7 Ashes tour but shambolic England performances saw the team collapse to a 5 - 0 whitewash, with a late fightback to ultimately win the following Commonwealth Bank one-day series proving scant consolation. Michael Vaughan returned from injury to lead a sorry World Cup campaign with England losing to New Zealand, Sri Lanka and South Africa and crashing out in the Super 8s, despite a thrilling victory over the West Indies, thanks to Kevin Pietersen's century, in Brian Lara's last international appearance.