Top 5 Ashes performers of all-time

The Australia-England rivalry has been very intense over the years. The cricketing fraternity has witnessed some of the greatest moments in the history of the game whenever these two sides slugged out on the pitch. I’ve tried my best to include as many brilliant performances as possible since it was quite difficult to narrow them down to just five and do justice to the topic at hand.

Here are the top 5 all-time best Ashes performers from both sides:

Ian Botham

With 399 runs and 34 wickets, the 1981 Ashes series completely belonged to England’s young all-rounder Ian Botham.

Going into the third Test at Headingley 0-1 down in the series, Botham was removed from captaincy duties and the veteran Mike Brearley took over the position.

With the burden of leading the side lifted from his shoulders, Botham delivered a brilliant display of swing bowling as he picked up 6/95 in Australia’s first innings total of 401/9. Forced to follow-on, and with his side reeling at 135/7, Botham played one of the most scintillating knocks that brought the English back into the game; his magnificent unbeaten 149 and Bob Willis’ devastating 8/43 consigned Australia to a 18-run defeat.

Botham followed it up with a magical 5/11 in the next Test to hand his side a 29-run victory, and also scored a match-winning 118 in the Old Trafford game, thus enabling England to retain the Ashes.

Richie Benaud

Richie Benaud’s claim to Ashes fame is the fact that he led a young team to a 4-0 victory over “the old enemy” in his first full series in charge during the 1958-59 season.

He was widely praised for his leadership abilities, getting the best out of a motley crew with limited experience. In the fourth Test of the 1961 series, the Australian skipper bowled a phenomenal spell of leg-spin to winkle out the England line-up just as they were looking set for victory.

His figures of 6/70 in that second innings on an Old Trafford pitch dotted with bowlers’ footmarks was instrumental in Australia’s retaining of the Ashes, and they bear remarkable testament to the amazing skill of a man who played hard, aggressive cricket for much of his long career.

Andrew Flintoff

Widely regarded as England’s finest all-rounder after Ian Botham, the burly Andrew Flintoff starred with both bat and ball in the 2005 Ashes.

402 runs and 24 wickets in a 5-match series showed exactly how much of an impact Flintoff had on the England team. His first over in Ashes cricket was a wicket-maiden as he removed the entrenched Justin Langer for 0.

The Edgbaston game witnessed a spectacular effort from the blonde-haired all-rounder, as he scored half-centuries in both innings and took seven wickets in the match.

However, the most poignant image of the game was his consoling of the despondent Australian pacer Brett Lee after England eked out a narrow 2-run win. Flintoff also scored a century in the series to carve his names in the history books.

Donald Bradman

He may have passed away a decade ago, but Australia’s greatest Test batsman made the entire Ashes series his own with magnificent performances in each.

As a 22-year old, Bradman hammered 974 runs in the 1930 series, with two double centuries and one triple century: his personal best of 334 coming in the third Test of the series.

He totalled 396 runs in the infamous Bodyline series of 1932-33 with just one century, hampered by the leg-stump line bowled at vicious pace by Harold Larwood and Bill Voce.

Bradman counter-attacked in the subsequent 1934 series with 758 runs. However, his greatest achievement was orchestrating a 4-0 whitewash of the English side in 1948, giving his side the tag of “Bradman’s Invincibles“. For his sheer prowess with the bat alone, the Don makes it to the top of my list of the all-time best Ashes performers.

Jim Laker

England off-break bowler Jim Laker came into his own during the 1956 Ashes series, picking up 46 wickets in a five-match tourney – a record which remains unbroken to this day.

Having been clobbered for runs during the 1948 series by Bradman’s Invincibles, he restored some parity in the 1953 series, becoming one of the few English bowlers to perform well on pitches that were unsuitable to his style of bowling.

Laker formed a potent combination with left-arm spinner Tony Lock, and together they decimated the Australian batting in the final game of the 1953 series, sharing nine second-innings wickets between them. The highlight of his Ashes career was the fourth game of the 1956 series, where he grabbed 19 out of 20 wickets to fall – his 10/53 being the first instance of a bowler picking up all ten wickets in a Test match (it has since been replicated by former India leg spinner Anil Kumble). For this performance alone, Jim makes it to the list of the all-time greatest Ashes performers.