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Cricket’s oldest and most august rivalry has produced plenty of memorable moments down the years. Here are 10 of the best.
1882 Spofforth destroys England, creates Ashes:
Wisden commenced its report on this match by comparing the averages of the two sides, and noting that: “It will be observed that in every instance the batting average of each member of the Australian team is lower than that of the English batsman placed opposite him”. In a low-scoring, two-day affair at The Oval, Australia won after the English, chasing 85 to win, were bowled out for 77. Fred Spofforth, known as “the Demon”, claimed 7-44. A mock obituary posted in the Sporting Times read: In Affectionate Remembrance of ENGLISH CRICKET, which died at the Oval on 29th AUGUST, 1882, Deeply lamented by a large circle of sorrowing friends and acquaintances. R.I.P. N.B. The body will be cremated and the ashes taken to Australia.”
1930 Bradman:
England held the urn when Bill Woodfull’s Australians arrived in 1930 for five Tests, with a young batsman named Donald Bradman hidden among them. Scores of eight and 131 in a losing cause at Nottingham gave little indication of the havoc he would reap later, but by the end of the first day of the second Test at Lord’s England knew they had a phenomenon on their hands. Bradman’s 254 was always regarded by the man himself as his finest innings and it would be followed by 334 at Leeds and 232 at The Oval as Australia claimed the series. A series aggregate of 974 runs has never been bettered.
1932-33 War:
So dominant had Bradman been that English captain Douglas Jardine was intent on curtailing him by any means necessary. The result was the use – now outlawed – of a packed legside field while bowling at the body and head of the batsman: bodyline. The tactic made for a testy series and terse diplomatic communications between Britain and its Dominion. Matters came to a head during the third Test in Adelaide, where Bert Oldfield was struck in the head and Woodfull over the heart by a pair of Harold Larwood thunderbolts. Woodfull’s retort to the England manager Plum Warner that “there are two teams out there; one is trying to play cricket and the other is not”, has come to embody the depth of Australian feeling about events that summer. As for Bradman, his average was halved, and England took the Ashes.
1948 – Invincibles:
The first and still the only Australian side to go through an entire Ashes tour unbeaten, Bradman’s last team had it all, and were further helped by regulations that allowed speed demons Ray Lindwall and Keith Miller a new ball every 55 overs. The Tests themselves were largely one-sided affairs, with the exception of a record chase of 404 at Leeds. The moment that has become entrenched in folklore actually had little to do with the series itself – Bradman’s final Test innings becoming an immortal duck thanks to Eric Hollies’ well-pitched googly and the emotion that welled up in the eyes of a batsman who had just received three cheers from the English team.
1956 – Australia, bowled Laker:
There are photos of the Old Trafford wicket from 1956 that show groundstaff causing a minor dust storm as they swept refuse from the wicket. But the tailored nature of the conditions do little to diminish the 19-wicket performance of Jim Laker in the third Test of 1956, a year Australians remember fondly for the Melbourne Olympics but less so for cricket. Laker had been taken apart by the Australians in 1948, but he honed his craft so effectively that by `56 he was nigh on unplayable in the right conditions. Laker always credited the efforts of Tony Lock, his Surrey and England teammate, whose left-arm spin claimed the only other wicket while always maintaining pressure on the befuddled tourists.
1961 – Benaud nabs the urn from around the wicket:
Trying to retain the Ashes won back comprehensively in 1958-59, the Australians were fighting uphill in the pivotal Old Trafford Test from the moment they were bowled out for 190 on day one. Doughty lower order batting by Alan Davidson and Graham McKenzie allowed them to set England 256 in little less than two sessions on the final afternoon, a target well in hand as Ted Dexter (76 in 84 minutes) led an advance to 1-150. Richie Benaud’s tour had begun with a bad shoulder injury, and he had not had much of an impact on the series so far. But, electing to bowl around the wicket into the rough on a hunch, he proceeded to embark on the spell that saved the Ashes.
1981 – 500-1:
Fully expecting an innings defeat at Headingley and a 2-0 series deficit, England checked out of the team hotel on the fourth morning. But from 7-135 following-on and still 92 runs short of averting an innings defeat, Ian Botham set off on the ultimate in Boys Own batting adventures, clobbering 149 not out in the company of the tail and providing Australia with a chase of 130 on what had always been a poor pitch. Switched downwind, a possessed Bob Willis (8-43) did the rest, and the course of Ashes history was forever changed. Australia’s Rod Marsh and Dennis Lillee found the bookies’ odds too good to refuse, but their windfall was bittersweet.
1989 – Winning them back:
England enjoyed much of the 1980s, regaining the Ashes amid a flurry of runs in 1985 and keeping them during the 1986-87 “Grand Slam” tour of Australia by Mike Gatting’s team. As such, England predicted great things at home in 1989, against an Australian side written off as the weakest to reach English shores. This perception would be shattered not long into the first Test at Headingley, when Allan Border’s aggressive first-day knock of 66 showed these tourists would not be dictated to. Border had been told by no less an Ashes authority than Ian Chappell that he had been too friendly on previous visits. This time David Gower would feel a decided sense of nastiness from a team that scooped the series 4-0 to begin an upward trend towards global domination.
1993 – The ball from hell:
As Shane Warne marked out his run-up on the second day of the first Test at Old Trafford, BBC summariser Trevor Bailey was heard to remark “if he can’t pitch it then England could have a very good time indeed”. Moments later Gatting was beating a bewildered path to the dressing room after losing his off bail to a demon delivery that curved viciously through the air before snapping back nearly a metre to beat a tentative blade. Warne went on to take 34 wickets in the series, cause endless nightmares for English batsmen and spark a revival of slow bowling – an art many had thought to be on its deathbed.
2005 – Reversal of fortune:
Warne was to better his 1993 haul in his final Ashes tour, but in the end it was to no avail. The spin revolution he had started was still going strong around the world, but in the northern summer of 2005 it was reverse swing that had the last word on the destination of the urn. England’s two-run victory in the second Test at Edgbaston, which erased Australia’s win at Lord’s and so opened up the possibility of a home win, would not have been possible without the late bend Andrew Flintoff and Simon Jones were able to gain with the old ball. At Old Trafford, Michael Clarke and Simon Katich were both so confused they were bowled not offering a shot, and Australia’s best hope of a series-squaring win at The Oval was snuffed out by an unrelenting spell from Flintoff.
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