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2005 English cricket season

2005 (2005) English cricket season
County Championship
Champions Nottinghamshire
Runners-up Hampshire
Most runs Ed Joyce (1,668)
Most wickets Mushtaq Ahmed (80)
Cheltenham & Gloucester Trophy
Champions Hampshire Hawks
Runners-up Warwickshire Bears
Most runs Nick Knight (435)
Most wickets Neil Carter (14)
totesport League
Champions Essex Eagles
Runners-up Middlesex Crusaders
Most runs Paul Weekes (785)
Most wickets James Kirtley (31)
Twenty20 Cup
Champions Somerset Sabres
Runners-up Lancashire Lightning
Most runs Owais Shah (410)
Most wickets Nayan Doshi (17)
PCA Player of the Year
Andrew Flintoff
Wisden Cricketers of the Year
Matthew Hoggard
Simon Jones
Brett Lee
Kevin Pietersen
Ricky Ponting
2004
2006

Before the beginning of the 2005 English cricket season began, a resurgent English cricket team had won four Test series in a row, going unbeaten through the 2004 calendar year. The start of the international season saw England defeat Bangladesh 2–0 in their two-match series, winning both Tests by an innings. This was followed by a tri-nations one-day tournament that also featured Australia. However, all eyes were on the Ashes. Australia still started as favourites, but England, for the first time in years, were expected to put up a real challenge to Aussie supremacy.

Indeed, so they did, despite losing the first Test by 239 runs. England came back to win the second and fourth Tests, and draw the third and fifth, to win the Ashes for the first time since 1986–87. Andrew Flintoff dominated with both bat and ball for England, scoring 402 runs – more than any Australian – and taking 24 wickets – more than any Australian bar Shane Warne. Warne also had a spectacular series, with 40 wickets at a bowling average of 19.92, and 249 runs, but most of his efforts came in losing causes – such as making 42 with the bat in the second innings of the second Test.

In domestic cricket, Nottinghamshire won the County Championship, for the first time since 1987, and Durham enjoyed promotion in both the shorter and the longer form of the game. Surrey, the 2000 and 2002 Championship winners, were relegated in the Championship, and played in Division Two in both the Championship and the National League in 2006. Hampshire Hawks won the 50-over knock-out C&G Trophy, but were relegated in the National League, which Essex Eagles won in emphatic fashion, as they lost only one game and had a 14-point gap to the runners-up, Middlesex Crusaders.


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