Ah, I wouldn't be hanging out for the umpires to save you. Australia lost the 2005 series for a number of reasons, many of them with their origin in the Australian team. Yes, the English played out of their skins, and the combination was just enough to get England the series win.
For me, there were three problems for Australia in that series. Firstly was the injury to Glenn McGrath. He was fully fit for only one test, and that was the only one that Australia won. Secondly, many of the Australians played like millionaires - on paper they were a brilliant team and no less good than teams which had won the last few series - in that they failed to apply themselves when conditions and their opponents got on top of them. Thirdly, I think Ricky Ponting was a poor captain - he inherited a brilliant team and never really seemed to develop tactics to make the best use of his players' skills because he thought he could rely on the bowling brilliance of McGrath and Warne and the batting brilliance of Hayden, Langer, himself and Gilchrist. By contrast the team Clarke led in the 2013-14 series was far less talented, but Clarke is a cannier captain than Ponting, and the team as a whole played out of their skins in the way England did in 2005.
I thought we were lucky in 2005. We got some very friendly umpiring decisions and we were within a whisker of going 2-0 down. Yep - we had a great bowling attack and some great individual contributions with the bat, but it was seat-of-the-pants stuff. McGrath's injury was the turning point.
And for me this was one of those occasions where Ponting showed poor captaincy, choosing to put England in to bat. The pitch was expected to be tough for batting, but at most for only a couple of hours. After surviving that, England had by far the best of the batting conditions, and Australia did well to come close on the last day. Had Australia batted first they may well not have won, not having as strong a bowling attack, but they would have avoided the need to chase runs on a deteriorating pitch.
I was at Lords that first day when Hoggy boomed a big inswinger through Hayden early on and then Harmy hit Langer on the elbow (oof!) and tinned Ponting (hurrah!). It was all going great 'til we batted. I think we were 90-7 or something at the end of the day - we just couldn't cope with McGrath. We were lucky in 2013 too (that could easily have been 2-2 going to the last game after we scraped through at Trent Bridge and rain saved us at Old Trafford) and I thought the cracks in the side were obvious, tho' all my mates thought we were brilliant. I was at Trent Bridge when Agar scored his 98 - absolute misery. Only Bell's batting got us through that year.
Yes, Australia was only just emerging from a poor couple of series, having sacked Micky Arthur as coach - a man who was apparently a very bad fit for the people in the Australian team he was dealing with - and with some attitude problems among some of the players. On the one hand Australia's performance in 2013 was very erratic, but on the other hand it was pointed out that England won the series without reaching 400 in any innings.
The only series where England were clearly superior were 2009 (I had two great days at Lords - the first day when Australia just went to pieces in the field and the last day when Freddie got his 5-fer - and a great day at the Oval when Trott got his ton) and 2010/11. Poor Ricky copped a lot of stick - is he the only Aussie skipper to lose three Ashes series? At least he didn't cry like Kim Hughes did.
Well, as I've pointed out a couple of times I don't think Ponting was a clever captain. In the final test in 2005 when Australia had to win he accepted an offer from the umpires to stop play for bad light when the batsmen were well set and risks needed to be taken. On the other hand in the first test in 2009 he kept Australia batting too long when the opportunity was there to get a demoralised England back in to bat. And as a general rule he had a very negative approach when dealing with a recognised batsman batting with tailenders (rather than trying to get the batsman out he'd try everything to just get him off strike in an attempt to bowl at the tailender). He also seemed to have little idea of using part-time bowlers or of innovative field settings - neither of them necessary when you have two of the world's best bowlers in your team as he did at the start of his captaincy, but increasingly important when your attack is rather more pedestrian.
However in 2010-11 it was mostly a case of Australia's best not being up to the task of facing an England in awesome form.
