How little we know about important facets of cricket. Did you know that The Oval hosted England’s first ever Test match and not Lord’s! Did you know that women had already played a Cricket World Cup before men played one in 1975! Did you know that Eden Gardens could host 110,000 spectators before the Calcutta venue underwent significant construction changes with safety of spectators in mind and currently can host only 66,000! Similarly, there are also many untold stories about the Ashes.

When England lost to Australia for the first time at home in 1882, Sporting Times published a mock obituary moaning the death of English cricket. It had said that the body will be cremated and the ashes taken to Australia. This was when the term ‘ashes’ was first used. This had caught the imagination of the fans at that time.

Not much later, the England team was getting ready for the long ship journey to Australia and the English captain Ivo Bligh vowed to bring ‘the English ashes’ back home. Billy Murdoch, his opposite number vowed to defend it. The British press played it up saying that the tour was all about ‘the quest to regain the ashes’.

Love story gives birth to The Ashes

That tour to Australia apart from the official Test matches also contained several exhibition games. After England had beaten Australia in the series 2-1, there was one such exhibition game at Rupertswood Estate on Christmas eve of 1882 where Bligh met a lady named Florence Murphy. She had taken her perfume jar, burnt two bails, put the ashes in it and presented to England captain to symbolize regaining of the ashes, which was his sole purpose in touring Australia. A few months later, Bligh married her. When they returned to England, there was another companion with them – The Ashes. The legend was born there.

The Ashes stayed at the mantlepiece of their Kent home. One of Bligh’s last wishes was to hand over the urn – which effectively was his girlfriend’s perfume jar - to MCC after his death. As was wished, the urn or The Ashes now belongs to the MCC and stays at Lord’s. Thanks to Ivo Bligh and Lady Florence Murphy we have such a sensational story and a perfume jar that the entire cricketing world loves.

So, the story is that the first Test between England and Australia was started in 1877, much earlier than the legend of The Ashes started. The first mention of the term ‘Ashes’ in Wisden, the bible of cricket, happens in 1905.

MCC has taken extreme care in protecting The Ashes urn and after x-rays showed that the handle of the trophy were fragile, it underwent repair work. Since the urn is so delicate, it has made only two visits to Australia.

With that England’s domination of the Ashes started as they went onto win the subsequent seven series. In that period, England lost only four Tests and won 23 games. Following the World War I, Australia started dominating the Ashes with Warwick Armstrong’s side completing the first ever whitewash in 1920.

Emergence of Bradman

Towards the late 1920s, England had the upper hand having in their ranks the likes of Walter Hammond and Jack Hobbs. Australia introduced a certain Donald Bradman for the 1928 – 29 series, but England still won handsomely 4-1.

In 1939, Bill Woodful skippered a young side to England and the legend of Bradman started here. He was unstoppable scoring a 974 runs averaging 139, a World Record in a single series.

In that series, at Headingley, Bradman made 334 and 309 of those runs came on day one. He had reached a century before lunch on the opening day. Bradman rated his double hundred at Lord’s the previous Test to be a better knock. The run machine posted another double hundred in the final Test at The Oval and Australia had regained the Ashes.

Bodyline disrupts England – Australia relations

England were contemplating a method to stop Bradman for the following series down under. They chose a combative skipper in Douglas Jardine. He in turn picked Nottinghamshire quicks Harold Larwood and Bill Voce and developed something called the leg-theory or bodyline as is popularly known.

The purpose was to bowl at the bodies of the Australian batters. Jardine had predicted that his opponents would try to prevent bodily harm using their bats and in turn that would turn out to be chances for the close-in fielders packed on the leg-side.

Jardine’s methods weren’t appreciated by all. But the England captain was determined. He commented, ‘I haven’t travelled 6000 miles to make friends but to win back the Ashes.’

His methods worked and Bradman was a mere pale shadow of his former self making less than 400 runs. England had won back the Ashes, in style too 4-1. However, this forced MCC to change the laws of cricket limiting the number of players allowed on the leg-side.

For Australia’s return series, there were several conditions following the unsavoury incidents of the bodyline series. MCC responded by removing Jardine, Larwood and Voce from the series.

Jardine and Larwood never played Test cricket again. Larwood was only 29 when he was withdrawn. Voce, however, made a comeback to the England side. Interestingly, Larwood migrated to Australia and lived in Sydney where he died in 1995, not very far from the SCG.

In that 1934 series, Australia recovered the Ashes and held onto them until 1953 with obviously Bradman dominating most of those triumphs. Bradman was 40 by the time he made his last tour to England in 1948 and he bowled off in style. That series consisted several First-Class games as well apart from five Tests and in all those 34 games, Australia were never beaten. Thus, giving that team the nickname ‘The Invincibles’

From pace to spin

With Bradman gone, 1950s saw England’s emergence as a strong force and some of the all-time greats of the sport such as – Len Hutton, Dennis Compton, Peter May, Colin Cowdrey, Fred Truman and Jim Laker – gave the team unprecedented success – featuring for England.

Laker completed a feat that probably will never be matched again when he took 19 wickets in the Old Trafford Test in 1956. Bradman, now retired, rated that England side as the best that he had seen.

From pace-oriented attacks, England were finding success with spin and Australia’s answer to it was quite similar. They unleashed a leg-spinner by the name of Richie Benaud. Apart from being a crafty bowler, Benaud was also a terrific captain and a sound reader of the game.

Benaud took 31 wickets as Australia regained the Ashes in 1958-59. In 1961, after 13 years, Australia won their first Ashes series in England, the first since Bradman had retired and Benaud played a pivotal role.

After retirement Benaud was heavily involved with the game as a journalist and broadcaster and he went onto become one of the most respected voices in cricket.

Boring 1960s

The 1960s proved to be a dull era for the Ashes, particularly for England. With an array of bowlers who had dominated the sport gone into retirement, their replacements weren’t as effective and the teams’ preferred draws than wins. Australia held the Ashes, and they were happy with draws, but that didn’t go down well with fans as spectator turn outs dropped. Bob Simpson and Bill Lawry, Australian captains at that time were criticized for playing defensive cricket.

With Ray Illingworth as captain, 1970s saw a huge turnaround for England but they owed it to two men – Geoffrey Boycott and John Snow. In 1971, it was a seven-match series and not until the last session of the final Test the outcome of the series was known. Lawry was sacked as captain unceremoniously and he learned about his fate not from the selectors but through radio. His successor Ian Chappell was determined not to suffer the same fate as his predecessor.

Packer era

Armed with two fast bowlers named Denniss Lille and Jeff Thomson, Australia started their domination with an attacking captain like Chappell at the helm. But soon there was pandemonium as business tycoon Kerry Packer launched his own cricketing empire – The World Series Cricket. The cream of players not only from Australia and England but from other cricketing powers as well went the Packer way.

With Tony Greig lost to World Series Cricket, England surprised everyone by appointing Mike Brearley as the new captain. Now, Brearley never scored a Test match hundred and averaged a poor 22 with the bat and he couldn’t bowl. How can such a man inspire a team? But this was a masterstroke by the England selectors. Brearley was Cambridge educated and had degrees in classics and moral science. More than a fine player, given his scholarly he could deal well with difficult players. For example, he would fire up Ian Botham by saying that Bob Willis was too soft to run up the hill and bowl at Lord’s. That would be just what a charismatic player like Botham would need. He would gladly do it for the country and the Queen.

Brearley skippered England in 15 Ashes Tests and won 11 of them and during his tenure England were defeated just once. He is by far the most successful Ashes captain.

England’s decline and Australia’s peak

After Brearley left, there was a period of decline for England, who had lost Graham Gooch and several others for rebel cricket tours to South Africa. Australia were well led by Greg Chappell with young prodigy by the name of Allan Border as his understudy.

Border had groomed several young players like Mark Taylor, Steve Waugh, David Boon and Ian Healy and Australia proved to be a dominant force in 1989 winning the Ashes in England 4-0.

From 1989 to 2005, Australia won all the Ashes series – running into eight series – a period of total domination. This period saw Australia reaching their peak in cricket and the steady decline of English cricket.

Border was succeeded by Taylor and then the older Waugh and they all stamped Australia’s authority in Ashes cricket. While all these captains had several match winners in their ranks, the presence of Shane Warne was one major factor for Australia’s complete dominance.

Warne’s first delivery in the Ashes – to Mike Gating - is part of cricketing folklore with the delivery popularly known as the ball of the century. How dominating Australia were in that period is evident by one statistic. Until 1989, Australia had won 87 Ashes Tests and England 86. But by the time the 2005 series started, Australia’s number of wins had gone up to 115 whereas England had only 93 wins.

The 2005 series proved to be an exciting one with the outcome of the series not known until the last session of the final Test. Australia had a formidable side, but England under Duncan Fletcher had found new ways to get under the skin of the opposition and they were well lead by Michael Vaughan. England regaining the Ashes was celebrated on the streets of London for many days, but Australia would hit back with vengeance in the return series completing a 5-0 whitewash.

With Ashes regained, several Australian legends like Glenn McGrath, Shane Warne and Justin Langer retired. Since then, the Ashes cricket series has been closely contested with very little to choose from both these evenly matched sides. The series in 2021 –22 was an exception though as amidst COVID England suffered a 4-0 defeat.

Several heads rolled in the England set up after the catastrophic tour and among those axed were Head Coach Chris Silverwood. Captain Joe Root survived but not for too long.

Given England’s exciting style of play the 2023 series many had predicted will help England win the Ashes back, but Australia so far have proven that by playing old style cricket of grinding it out you can still win cricket matches.

The tourists have taken a 1-0 lead in the current series after the dramatic Edgbaston Test match where England had boldly declared on day one. England seem to be not wanting to change their style, but the first Test could come back to haunt them as there’s very little room for error in the Ashes, the oldest and greatest sporting spectacle in the world.