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You’ve got to hand it to Stuart Broad: perhaps more than any other sportsman of our age, he has the ability to penetrate to the deeper truths about the human condition.
Where others see only the surface, Broad sees beneath, and can tell us what IS, rather than merely seems to be. So it is that, while most believe that in the series of 2021-22, Australia won the Ashes 4-0, Broad draws back the curtain to reveal that in fact, they did not.
But more than that, with his perspicacity Broad has set us free. Now that we understand the true nature of the Ashes, we can, using his own methodology, discern that in fact, Australia has never lost the Ashes at any time during history.
It’s true! We can easily demonstrate this by examination of the Test series played between Australia and England, seeing that for a variety of reasons any purported “victories” by the old country have been, a la Broad, nullified.
Firstly, the 19th century: any Ashes series played prior to January 1st, 1901, did not count, because Australia was not actually a country yet. It was actually completely unethical of England to play these matches in the first place, in the absence of a properly constituted federal government.
So we come to the 1903-04 Ashes, supposedly won by England 3-2. All the Tests in this series were “Timeless Tests”, i.e. played to a finish no matter how long it took. As England’s victories were achieved without adhering to a time limit, it can easily be seen that they were not proper Test matches and therefore do not count. By the same token, the 1905 series was made up of Tests that were scheduled for only three days, and as Test matches are five days long, these were not Tests. No Tests, no Ashes. The 1911-12 series was timeless again, so that’s that. In 1912 the series was a triangular tournament between England, Australia and South Africa, so we certainly do not need to concern ourselves with that.
(Photo by Stu Forster/Getty Images)
Then came the First World War, which gave England a break from their continuous non-winning. After the war, Australia thrashed England in perfectly natural manner for a few series, then came 1926. In 1926 the first four Tests were drawn and the last Test won by England only after Hobbs and Sutcliffe put on a huge opening partnership on a near-unplayable sticky wicket. This was the result of the Oval groundskeepers not covering the wicket, i.e. cheating. Doesn’t count.
The 1928-29 series was not only made up of illegitimate timeless Tests, but England also cheated by allowing Australia to play the second Test without Don Bradman. There were also two Tests played in Melbourne, which is hardly fair.
The next series England won was 1932-33, in which Douglas Jardine instructed his bowlers to murder the Australian batsmen. Given this, it would be revoltingly immoral for the English to even think about claiming this as an Ashes victory.
In 1953 England won 1-0, but the fourth Test was drawn with Australia 30 runs from victory after England’s Trevor Bailey bowled wide of leg stump to restrict scoring. If the umpires had known what we know now, they would’ve called these wides and Australia would have won.
In 1954-55, England won only because they selected Frank “Typhoon” Tyson. But in the first Test Tyson bowled incredibly badly to lull Australia into a false sense of security. The series was therefore won only by deception, which nullifies the result in any fair-minded person’s judgment.
In 1956 England won after Jim Laker took 19 wickets at Old Trafford. As this is clearly a ludicrous number of wickets for one bowler to take, it can be assumed that the 1956 Ashes are simply an urban myth and in reality never happened.
England thankfully did not claim to have won the Ashes again until 1970-71, but after the third Test of this series was abandoned, the two teams instead invented one-day internationals. This was a deeply distressing development and the mental disturbance caused by the intervention of one-dayers mid-series means the final result cannot be taken seriously. Also, John Snow hit Terry Jenner on the head, which was very mean.
In 1972 England retained the Ashes, but since they’d never really won them in the first place, they didn’t.
In 1977 all the Australians’ minds were on the money from Kerry Packer that they’d just signed up for. England would be incredibly crass to claim this as a win.
In 1978-79 the Australian team was depleted by World Series cricket, captained by Graham Yallop mid-nervous-breakdown, and was so short of quality cricketers that for the last three Tests the new ball was taken by Ian “Molly” Meldrum. Since it was not a real Australian team, it was not a real Ashes.
In 1981 England won the series only because Ian Botham sold his soul to Satan in exchange for every mishit shot he ever played going for four. Occult contracts are forbidden by the ICC so this cannot be counted.
In 1985 the Australian team was again depleted, by a rebel South African tour, to the extent that they were forced to pick Jeff Thomson, who was at the time well over 60 years old, and Greg Matthews, who was at the time not very good. Again, not a real Australian team.
In 1986-87 it was reported that the England team “can’t bat, can’t bowl and can’t field”. This was a complete lie as they could actually do all three, and therefore, again, the Ashes were only won by deception. Also, for the entire summer the Australian selectors were afflicted by brain parasites, which the English very unfairly capitalised on.
Thankfully the natural order was then restored for a considerable time, until 2005. In 2005, Glenn McGrath stepped on a suspiciously-placed cricket ball, Ricky Ponting was run out by an illegitimate substitute fielder, and Michael Kasprowicz’s hand was off the bat. Very clearly this series cannot possibly be counted for myriad reasons.
In 2009 Australia scored more runs than England, with six batsmen averaging over 40 compared to England’s one, and took more wickets than England, with the top three wicket-takers for the series all Australian. Therefore it’s clear that Australia won this series and any allegation to the contrary is deliberate misinformation.
In 2010-11 Australia was reeling from the global financial crisis and could not be expected to be emotionally ready for a Test series.
In 2013, England mistakenly scheduled an Ashes series in the same year as Australia was going to have one. This series therefore doesn’t count as obviously the REAL 2013 Ashes was the one Australia won 5-0 later that year.
In 2015 Australia won the World Cup so anything else that happened that year need not be considered at all.
So here we are in 2023. Can England, under Ben Stokes and Brendon McCullum, register their first Ashes victory in 146 years? It’ll sure be exciting to find out!