Every year, the Ashes are fought over by two countries that live and breathe cricket. The English and Australians are the ones who have been playing this game the longest. After England’s cricket team lost to Australia at The Oval in 1882, a sarcastic obituary came up with the name “Ashes.” The obituary for English cricket said that after it died, its ashes would be burned and sent to Australia.
Before talking about the next ashes, first let’s talk about the past. Even though the line was meant to make fun of one of the teams, it caught the public’s attention, and the term stuck. The Ashes urn is given to the winners. It is made of clay and is 10.5 cm tall. It is said to hold the ashes of a burned cricket bail.
Between 2005 and 2019, England and Australia played eight five-match Test series, with four games at each country’s home stadium. The two teams have played more than 40 games against each other. Here are the five most memorable moments from that long-running rivalry.
- The escapade at Cardiff, 2009
When Australia’s Monty Panesar walked out to bat in the first Test at Cardiff, they were excited. The final score was 674/6. Four players got hundreds, and the captain, Ricky Ponting, got 150. To put it mildly, England’s answer was not good enough. Paul Collingwood was the only batter who tried hard to win the Test. He batted for almost 5 and a half hours and faced 245 balls. Collingwood lost focus when there were only 11.30 overs left. The Kangaroos probably saw this as a chance to get ahead in the five-game Test series. But no one had planned for the two finishers to be so stubborn. Anderson and Panesar were both calm under pressure. They didn’t take any risks and didn’t pay attention to any close calls or pleas. When Peter Siddle gave James Anderson a boundary, the crowd in Cardiff went crazy. From all the cheering, you would have thought England had won the Test match.
The one-run lead that had been gained through the boundary was the reason for the ovation. England’s last batting order was able to score 13 runs with 69 balls left and take the lead. Australia wouldn’t have had time to bat again even if they had taken a wicket. Ricky Ponting’s face showed disappointment as he shook hands with James Anderson. Even though England was about to lose, its last batsmen tried for more than an hour to save the Test.
- Brett Lee and Michael Kasprowicz put up a fight at Edgbaston, in 2005
On the third day of the Edgbaston Test in 2005, cricket fans saw something they could never have imagined. Out of the 17 wickets that were taken on the day, Australia took eight and England took nine. Brett Lee and Shane Warne wiped out the English batting order in just one inning. The most memorable part of the innings was without a doubt when the first bowler hit Michael Vaughan with a cracking ball that knocked out the stumps. As a final flourish, Andrew Flintoff hit every speedster over the Edgbaston boundary, even though every fielder was on the boundary. Matthew Hayden and Justin Langer got things going in the right direction, but Andrew Flintoff once again put a damper on things. In the same over, he used a leg-cutter to get rid of Langer near the wicket and another to get rid of Ponting over the wicket. Australia had lost 8 wickets by the end of Day 3, and they needed another 107 runs to win.
- Mitchell Starc’s “ball of the summer” at Perth, 2017
Crack! If you were in Perth, Australia, at 4:04 p.m. local time, you might have heard that sound. Mitchell Starc was getting ready to throw a thunderbolt at James Vince as England batted in their second innings. England was behind by 159 runs at the time.
The ball pitched just outside off-stump at a good length. From the point of view of a left-handed bowler, the ball was destined to curve down the wicket and either hit the pads or go straight to the keeper. After that, everything went completely crazy. Because the pitch changed, the ball’s path changed in a big way. It jumped up and skittered off James Vince’s stump, which was strange. The English batter couldn’t help but wonder what in the world had happened to make the ball change its path so drastically. The angle the ball was at when it started moving changed by about 4 degrees, and the distance it moved in a straight line changed by 42 centimeters. Wasim Akram said that this was a “jaffa” and praised the Australian quickly.
- Mitchell Johnson’s 6-12 in the post-lunch session of Day 3 at Adelaide, 2013
Mitchell Johnson had a nice beard in the 2013 Ashes series, but it wasn’t even his best feature. His scary bowling was the best thing about the series. Australia beat England 5-0, and Johnson’s 37 wickets helped them win all of those games by a lot. In the first Test at the Gabba, Johnson hadn’t done very well. But after lunch on the third day of the second Test in Adelaide, he lost his temper. Alastair Cook was kicked out of the English team, which sent shockwaves through the locker room. 91 mph, throwing on off-stump, and looking like it might turn in before keeping its line. Cook stuck to the original line, and he couldn’t do anything about the dangerous change. Even though England was already four down, Johnson did not take any more wickets, which was a surprise.
- Ben Stokes’ heroic chase at Headingley, 2019
Chaos broke out at Headingley when Jack Leach tried to charge back into his crease. Australia’s luck ran out when Nathan Lyon didn’t do the easiest run-out he could have. Everything went right for Ben Stokes. Josh Hazlewood took five wickets and held England to only 67 runs in their first innings. Now, England had to score 359 runs to tie the series. The score was 203 runs behind at the end of Day 4 when Ben Stokes and Joe Root batted. The next day, Stokes’ helmet’s cheek guard was falling off, and a rough bouncer named Josh Hazlewood came up to him. Joe Root’s two runs didn’t do much, and Nathan Lyon got him out in the end. England got to 238-4 before lunch on Day 4 despite the setback.
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