Not quite as one sided as many recall... and in many cases the England sides that were beaten were quite a bit better than this current England side. In fact, the England sides that LOST to the WI in the 80s would probably beat this current England side as comprehensively as this England lot beat Ganga's crew!

Not sure about that there are a few 5-0's in there.

I'm not sure about that either. Our current batting is far stronger than for a long time. The current would not have got whitewashed, but may have lost (but only to an England side that had Botham in his pomp). Any England side from the mid 80's onward would have comfortably lost. With weak batting and a bowling attack with no decent spin option and only a few medium pacers with no penetration those England teams must be amongst the worst ever! I was starting to forget how bad things were, thanks for reminding me!

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Mark.

In June 1980 the following, pretty awesome England side lined up: GA Gooch, G Boycott, CJ Tavare, RA Woolmer, DI Gower, IT Botham, P Willey, APE Knott, JK Lever, RGD Willis, M Hendrick. Sure, Cook, Vaughan, Pietersen and Bell in today's Test line up could have challenged for Tavare's place or Woolmer's place in that side on current form, but they might well have been turned down!

Hoggard would have been in contention... but might also have been turned down.

The West INdies won by two wickets... but Roberts, Holding, Marshal and Garner would have slaughtered a lesser side... and the WI batting lined up with CG Greenidge, DL Haynes, IVA Richards, SFAF Bacchus, AI Kallicharran, DL Murray and CH Lloyd - pretty damn good!

Check out the scorecard and then try and convince me that Strauss, Harmison, Plunkett, Prior and Collingwood could have mixed it in that company - they'd have been destroyed!

A decade later, England's batting line up was perhaps the most promising of the modern era: the top 7 read GA Gooch, MA Atherton, GA Hick, AJ Lamb, MR Ramprakash, RA Smith, RC Russell. Waiting in the wings was one A Stewart... and by the end of the series the likes of CC Lewis, PAJ DeFreitas and PCR Tufnell had coaches everywhere hailing the prospect of great England times to come.

Had they faced the quality of opposition that exists today, with all the support (academy, central contracts and so on) that exist today... that side might well have ended up being hailed as one of the great sides of all time: the talent was there in abundance.

Sadly... guys like Marshall, Ambrose and Walsh played havoc with the batsmen... and the likes of Haynes, Richardson, Richards and Dujon were not about to give the bowlers the easy time of it that most 21st century batting line-ups have offered!

But I did say that an England team with Botham in (during his peak years 78-85) wouldnt be weak! Yes that Windies team was good, no great ,and that England team did well to almost snatch a win.

I feel sure that Pieterson would walk into that side ahead of Woolmer and I'm sure Willey and Levers places could be displaced by Hoggard and say Panesar if you wanted a slow bowler or Colly if you wanted a bat with a bit of bowling. But I agree the current England team would have to work hard to compete with that team.

Regarding the England team from 10 years later only Gooch and Smith avereraged over 40. Atherton 38, Ramps 27, Hick 33, Lamb 36 all shows that the batsman werent of the highest class. Are you seriously saying that those bats would perform better than England current top 7, all of whom average over 40 and two over 50!

As for the bowlers, Lewis flattered to decieve, Tufnell was talented but went AWOL when he got attacked and DeFreitas was a poor mans Hoggard. Of the current attack both Hoggard and Harmison both have over 200 test wickets, Flintoff is well on his way and Panesar is our best spinner since Underwood. How many test wickets did Lewis, Defrietas and Tuffnell take??

More to the point only Gooch from that team would get into the current team (for Strauss) and possibly Smith for Bell. The current England team would win inside 4 days handsomely.

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Mark.

That crew played on far more sporting wickets than today's players... and against far, FAR better opposition. Pietersen is no better than Hick was, he's just luckier in finding the likes of Collymore, Powell and Bravo bowling at him than Hick was in finding the likes of Ambrose, Marshall and Walsh bowling at him!

Ramps never struggled against the best opposition: go check his record in Australia... and then compare it with what the 2007 side managed last winter. His returns on either of his tours would place him well above all but Pietersen of the crew that toured this winter!

Here.. I've done it for you: Now start working out whether you'd like to have Strauss (struggling against everyone) and Collingwood (looking rather lost against Edwards) batting for your life against Ambrose... or whether Atherton and Lamb might be a better bet....

Tuffers offered everything Panesar offers... and Chris Lewis was just astonishingly talented: with the sort of backing Flintoff has had he might well have gone on to true greatness.

It's a shame the 1990s didn't live up to the promise... but let's not pretend that England, today, is blessed with greater talents: the differences are more in the quality of the opposition and the quality of the England management!

But Warne was one of the greatest bowlers ever and in the last Ashes Pieterson totally nullified him. He also went after McGrath in the tests and reduced his effectiveness.
In terms of talent, yes Hick and Pieterson were similar but Pieterson is going out of his way to make the most of his. If the likes of Viv Richards, who happened to play with and against all of these players rates Pieterson then thats good enough for me...

The fact is that Pieterson would have succeeded against those guys, yes, his record wouldnt have been as good as it is now but he would have averaged 40+.

The thing about Ramps was he had 50 odd goes at test cricket and failed miserably!! An average of 27 is an absolute joke. He did nothing against the Windies attack in 91 and did nothing else against them in various other tours when they had the still great Ambrose, Walsh and Bishop. Sorry but Ramps is a loser when it comes to test cricket despite the odd good score (but importantly only 1 ton) against the Aussies he still only had an average of 42, which means he failed very badly against everyone else averageing about 22. Ashley Giles manages that!

I'm being harsh on Atherton but for his bad back would have been more succesful in test cricket and could have displaced Strauss in the current team. But even so Strauss is still the fastest player to 3000 test runs...

Lewis was supremely talented but he couldnt handle it when the pressure was on, his stats show he wasnt a test player - he got more than enough chances. Same with Tufnell.

Believe me 1988-1998 were dark times for English cricket, I know beacuse I watched just about every ball bowled upto 1995! The players were not as good as they are now. We were about on a par with the current West Indies team .

One thing we do agree on is that the management in the early 90's was so bad it bordered on being criminal. Please let Gooch/Stewart(s) no where near a cricket team again!

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Mark.

Take a look at a Test in which Ramps never even registed a half-century. A joke of a contribution? Absolutely not: an exceptional Test performance, better (for instance) that Collingwood's double century at Adelaide in 2007... and in fact better than ANY England batting performance in the 2007 Ashes.

Look into the detail: in the first innings he came to the crease with England at 19/3... and was the only batsman to cope with a particularly torrid attack. Sadly, by the time he'd seen England through the first 30 overs he was all but out of partners.

The scorecard records 26 runs... but that was 97 minutes of the most gripping Test cricket I've ever watched.

In the second innings... Ramps turned in one of the great batting performances of the last 20 years. Sadly, he didn't get the support that Atherton got in Jo'berg... but it was a truly heroic rearguard action. For four and a half hours he batted at a level of sustained quality that the likes of Pietersen may never actually match.

He ended with just 47 runs... and no more partners.. but it was the sort of innings that England so desperately needed in 2007.... and it wasn't uncharacteristic - but focussing on his career average kinda overlooks that.

ps. Check out the subsequent match: only one Aussie made a higher first innings score than Ramps... and only one Aussie made a higher second innings score than Ramps: batting for five hours (over two innings) and scoring two 50s against that attack, in that context, was a notable performance... but that was in an era when a half century was something of note - many centuries (and even double centuries) of recent vintage have been of far less merit!

I'm not disputing that on occasions Ramps batted well, but over 50 tests he wasnt good enough.

NOT that he didnt have the talent though, he had loads and should have scored 10000 test runs. He had a very good technique and every shot in the book.....a wasted talent In the end even his best mate Hussain and Duncan Fletcher gave up on him.

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Mark.

Amen to that! I have an invitation to the Saturday at Trent Bridge, which I am looking forward to as my one day of cricket this summer.

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Money won't buy you friends. But it gets you a better class of enemy.
Spike Milligan

I am looking forward to it though i fear it could be a 0-0 draw with the average score being around 450.Both sides have plenty of batting and plenty of questions in the bowling department.