Dilley 👌good man. Never forgotten. Cricket won, No complaints, no excuses. The Aussies lost, they openly admit it. As have we on many an occasion. But this win was truly astonishing. Prob only ever matched by the Flintoff 2005 spell, the team spirit to win. These two tests arguably the greatest of all time. This is cricket. This is true sportsmanship.
Such amazin tales of cricket! Well done cricket australia. And well done to be sporting enough to recognise the great cricket you sometimes lost against. Wake up BCCI!
Should this be retitled Botham and Willis resurrects England. Chris Old also got a significant partnership with Ian Botham as well, and scored 29 which seems forgotten in this piece.
Not to mention, the great DK, seeing the odds while at tea, and placing a bet on England to win. Good pay day for the greatest fast bowler of all time.
@@davesmith3289 to accuse players in that team such as great like Lillee, Marsh, Hughes, Border, Alderman, Lawson, Dyson etc of not trying is offensive frankly and shows little knowledge of cricket
As they have said in the past, if they were going to throw the game after seeing the 500-1 odds and putting money on England, why would they only put £10 on?? For people to even think about it or mention it is crazy!! Total rubbish.
@@mrkipling2201 "why would they only put £10 on?" Why do think they only put 10 on? Because they said so? lol. They got caught betting aginst themselves, so they said "it was only a tenner" You gotta be pretty gullible to believe that mate.
Shattering was right. Images of Botham advancing down wicket & Willis' bowling was deadly. But that's sport & England earned full respect. Makes Ashes great. Brearly one of the best captains in cricket history with Ray Illingworth during 70's
This match (and series) changed how the game is played. The old guard put up such a resistance with World Series Cricket and almost destroyed the game. It took another 2 or 3 decades to properly recover and then embrace the entertainment factor. T20 and IPL Slumdog Millionaires owe a debt of gratitude to the 2 teams in this series. Winning is good. Winning against the best is lifetime memory though. The Ashes have no comparison even in this whiteball world of cricket.
Wasn't almost everyone doing ball tampering back in 80s & 90s(the ones who knew how to reverse swing the ball) after Imran Khan started the art of reverse swing.
1981-Ian botham 2005-Andrew Flintoff 2019-????? I would have said stokes after his performance at headingly but who knows?? Definitely in the current series smith is on another planet. Take him out and the 2 teams are pretty even.
1981 the best ever summer of cricket imo. People wud say 2005 and i cud understand that. 3rd 4th and 5th tests incredible! And botham innings in the 5th test the greatest 2 hours of entertainment ive ever seen on a cricket field.
I’d go for ‘05 purely because it was a similarly dramatic series between two teams both with legitimate claims to be the best in the world which wasn’t the case in 81 - the West Indies were away in the distance and while there a lot of famous names in the England team in particular they were either on the way down (Boycott, Taylor, even Brearley) or not yet the players they became (Gooch, Gatting,, Gower). Aus were equally in some turmoil and Thompson was absent. Doesn’t take away the drama of 81 but ‘05 shades it for me.
81 for me. The way england turned it around when being on the floor. I was only 14 at the time and even now in 2022, i still havnt seen a better or more destructive innings from an english cricketer than the 1 botham played at old trafford in the 5th test. Incredible!!!
