A brief history of the Ashes
England v Australia is the oldest continuous international cricket fixture, dating back to the first meeting at Melbourne in March 1877. Australia won then by 45 runs and, going into this winter's series, they now hold an advantage of 125 wins to England's 95, with the other 86 of the 301 matches drawn.
The early years – England won the first home encounter at the Oval in 1880, but at the same ground on the next Australian tour in August 1882 they suffered their first home defeat, which prompted the famous obituary notice for English cricket in the Sporting Times. It led a group of Australian ladies the following winter to present the touring English captain, the Hon Ivo Bligh, with a small urn containing the ashes of a bail (or it may be a ball or even a veil).
Since the series of three matches played in that 1882-83 season Test matches between England and Australia have been deemed a contest for the Ashes, with the palm changing hands only when one side gains an outright series victory. Bligh's widow presented the urn to MCC after his death in 1927 and, apart from special exhibitions, it never leaves Lord's, although a replica has been presented to the victorious captain in some recent series.
England, captained by such giants as W.G. Grace, Arthur Shrewsbury and A.E. Stoddart, were dominant in this early period and Australia held the Ashes only once during the 12 series played between 1883 and 1896.
1900s – hard as A.C. MacLaren tried, he ended up on the losing side in four series against Australia but between times first Pelham Warner, Down Under in 1903-04, and then the Hon F.S. Jackson, at home in 1905, ensured that England had their moments of triumph too.
1910s – a period cut short by the First World War but dominated by England. Johnny Douglas's side lost the first match at Sydney but remarkably won the next four. C.B. Fry captained England to a 1-0 win in the three-match series of 1912 that formed part of the Triangular Tournament with South Africa.
1920s – Australia's dominance at the start of this period, under Warwick Armstrong and Herbie Collins, was almost as great as in the recent period: three series played, 12 wins to Australia, one to England. But Percy Chapman, in his first Test as captain, led an England side that included Wilfred Rhodes, recalled at the age of 48, to a famous win at the Oval in 1926 to seize back the Ashes and he followed that with a magnificent 4-1 success Down Under in 1928-29 when Wally Hammond, with 905 runs in the series, outshone the debutant Don Bradman and England never looked back after winning the inaugural Test at Brisbane by a gargantuan 675 runs.
1930s – the Bradman era and the decade that produced the most notorious of all Anglo-Australian clashes, the Bodyline series of 1932-33, in which the strategy of England's captain, Douglas Jardine – short-pitched, leg-side bowling by Harold Larwood, Bill Voce and Bill Bowes to a packed field – provoked unprecedented acrimony and even threatened relations between the two countries; but it achieved its aim of curbing Bradman's runmaking: the master batsman averaged a mere 56.57 runs in each innings as opposed to his career mark of 99.94. England won the series 4-1, but it was their only success of the period as Bradman, and a pretty useful supporting cast, carried all before him in a series of narrow series wins. England came closest under Gubby Allen – who had refused to bowl Bodyline on the Jardine tour – went down 3-2 in 1936-37 and then Hammond's side drew 1-1 in 1938, when Len Hutton scored a then world Test record score of 364 at the Oval in the last Ashes match before the Second World War.
1940s – Ashes cricket resumed in the winter of 1946-47 with Hammond and Bradman again leading their countries and Bradman again victorious, 3-0. Norman Yardley had taken over when Bradman, on his last tour, brought the 1948 "Invincibles" to England for a mighty 4-0 victory.
1950s – a memorable decade for England, although they started and ended it with crushing defeats; it was also the first period in which The Times sent its own Cricket Correspondent to cover overseas tours. Freddie Brown's side went down 4-1 in 1950-51 as Australia asserted their authority, but a single victory under Len Hutton at the Oval in 1953 brought the crowds swarming on to the ground as Denis Compton made the winning hit that brought the Ashes back to England for the first time in 20 years. The fast bowling of Frank Tyson helped Hutton to follow up with a mighty 3-1 triumph Down Under in 1954-55 and then Jim Laker, 19 wickets at Old Trafford and 46 in the series, bowled England to a 2-1 success in 1956. England returned to Australia in 1958-59 with an apparently strong side and high hopes of success but Richie Benaud's men scuppered them 4-0.
1960s – Australia held the Ashes throughout this decade of fairly unexciting cricket, first under Richie Benaud and then under the leadership of their opening batsmen, Bob Simpson and Bill Lawry opposed to sides led by Peter May, Ted Dexter, Mike Smith and Colin Cowdrey. There was never much in it, however: it was 2-1 in 1961, 1-0 in 1964, and the other three series all ended 1-1.
1970s – a decade that began and ended well for England. Ray Illingworth's side gained a 2-0 victory Down Under in 1970-71 and held on to the Ashes with a 2-2 draw at home in 1972. However, Australia launched Dennis Lillee and Jeff Thomson on the England batsmen in 1974-75 and Mike Denness's side was crushed 4-1. Ian Chappell was victorious the following summer in England, but the margin was only 1-0. With Kerry Packer's World Series Cricket taking many of Australia's top players at the end of the 1970s Mike Brearley reclaimed the Ashes for England with a 3-0 triumph at home in 1977 and then a crushing 5-1 win over Graeme Yallop's "lambs" in Australia in 1978-79.
1980s – the last time England held the Ashes and could hold their heads high against Australia; this decade included 1981, the immortal summer of Ian Botham, whose all-round deeds after he had handed over the captaincy to Mike Brearley brought England a 3-1 triumph amid national rejoicing: 50, 149 and 6-95 at Headingley, 5-11 at Edgbaston, 118 and five more wickets at Old Trafford, and ten wickets in the match at the Oval. Although Bob Willis's side lost 2-1 Down Under in 1982-83, David Gower (1985) and then Mike Gatting (1986-87) were both victorious, only for Gower to cede the Ashes again, 4-0, to Allan Border in 1989 at the start of Australia's period of modern domination.
1990s – a period of total Australian ascendancy: five series won out of five, and of 27 matches played, Australia won 16, England only five. Shane Warne, the Waugh twins, Glenn McGrath under the captaincy of Border, Mark Taylor and Steve Waugh have seen off a succession of England sides led by Graham Gooch, Michael Atherton, Alec Stewart and Nasser Hussain.
2000s - the first decade of the new millennium began in the same way as its predecessor with Australian supremacy: a series in England and a series in Australia were each won 4-1 by the Australians under the captaincy of Steve Waugh. Although Nasser Hussain, England's leader in both series, in conjunction with the coach Duncan Fletcher, introduced a new steel into their side's play against other countries, they were still a distant second to the old enemy.
The 2005 series has been acknowledged as the best ever contested between the two old rivals. The closeness of the matches - apart from the first at England's least happy hunting ground, Lord's, which resulted in a thumping victory for Australia - and the excellent spirit in which they were played gripped the attention of the media and the country as never before.
After the dreadful start England fought back to win the second Test at Edgbaston by two runs and, after the Australians had hung on by the skin of their teeth to draw the third at Old Trafford, England claimed the fourth at Trent Bridge by three wickets. Amid an extraordinary outpouring of emotion at the Oval the final Test was drawn to secure the Ashes for England for the first time since 1987.
Michael Vaughan, the captain, and his men - notably the mighty all-rounder Andrew "Freddie" Flintoff - became national heroes and were feted with an open-top bus parade in London as well as visits to Downing Street and Buckingham Palace. For the losers Shane Warne, the master leg spinner, secured his place among the game's immortals by bowling as cunningly as ever to keep his team in the hunt.
Now the whole of Australia awaits the chance to take its hold on the urn again.
