The recently concluded Anderson-Tendulkar trophy ended up in a 2-2 draw. There were many nerve-wracking moments through the series, and also a few heartwarming ones. However, as far as the quality of cricket goes, former England cricketer Michael Atherton said he preferred the 2005 Ashes, which is touted as the best Test series in the modern era, over the 2025 England vs India one.
“I don’t think the quality was as good as ’05. I don’t think I’ve seen a better series than the ’05 Ashes. It was a great team on the decline and the emerging team, absolutely great players at the top of their game,” Atherton said while speaking on Sky Sports.
“But it was probably the best series since ’05. The 2023 Ashes was fantastic, but I’ll put this series as the best series since ’05 because of those dramatic moments, like Woakes and like Rishabh Pant,” Atherton added.
Imperfect series
Former Indian cricketer R Ashwin said this one is better than the 2025 England-Australia showdown. “A lot of people are comparing this series with the 2005 Ashes, but I think this series was slightly better than even the 2005 Ashes – because there was so much more imperfection, from both sides,” Ashwin said on his YouTube channel, Ash ki Baat.
“If you look at that Australian team, there was Glenn McGrath, Shane Warne, you had Michael Kasprowicz, Shaun Tait. From this side [England] you had Simon Jones, Steve Harmison, you had Ashley Giles. There was a lot of experience in the bowling attacks. There was experience in the batting too. There was a lot of hard-fought cricket, where you couldn’t see a lot of mistakes. It was hard-fought.”
While Ashwin did acknowledge this as a good series, he also mentioned it was an imperfect series. “In this series, there were a lot of mistakes,” Ashwin added. “But the young players have corrected their mistakes and gotten better through the series. You had somebody like KL Rahul who’s not put a foot wrong in the series. Then you had somebody like a Rishabh Pant or Shubman Gill, who made errors – both got run out once – they played some poor shots and got out at the crucial moments.”
