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“They went with songs to the battle, they were young,
Straight of limb, true of eye, steady and aglow.
They were staunch to the end against odds uncounted; ”
- Laurence Binyon
Perhaps the greatest sporting contest ever played panned out in 2005, when the Aussies, unbeaten in 16 years and possessing the sacred urn ever since Sachin Tendulkar had made his debut in International cricket, set foot in England to defend what was well and truly theirs. What they didn't quite account for was a battle, one with vengeance, fire, self-belief and driven by a talismanic skipper who knew the Ashes was going only one way that time around.
It was the pinnacle of Test cricket, a crescendo that commenced at the Mecca of cricket and culminated with every bit of excitement intact on the final day of the final Test at The Oval. It was a spectacle; a movie that ages would rewind, re-watch, adore, admire and save for grandchildren in their libraries.
If anything, it was a conquest, but one at home where the hosts defended bellicosely, summoning every ounce of their resources and administering them to impeccable perfection on the field, outplaying, out-classing and out-thinking a side often recognised as one among the best teams of the century, and probably a couple of centuries before.
The Prelude
Sixteen years. Eight successive series. 83 Test debutants
England went so long without an Ashes that they were desperate for a win. All these years they had meekly surrendered, not having the skills, players or resources to beat the Aussie juggernauts, a team that was quickly shifting gears and becoming the new powerhouse of cricket.
The hosts, however, had a stronger background this time. They had won seven series in a row in the Michael Vaughan-Duncan Fletcher reign. They had some talented batsmen, a maverick import from South Africa, an all-rounder oozing the aura of Ian Botham and a solid battery of pace bowlers.
What made them an even bigger force was belief. The earlier England Ashes teams since 1989 walked out jittery when facing the Australians. This had been the case for most of the previous decade until Michael Vaughan, an unassuming Yorkshire man rose to the helm of the England cricket, took them by their saddle and pulled them on vigorously. Vaughan and this England team, no.2 in the ICC rankings before that historic series, had it in them to test the Aussies. That even Ricky Ponting acknowledged this was probably England's biggest boost before the series.
But Australia being Australia, never saw the threat this England line-up posed. They had ruled the roost across the globe for close to a decade now and were the modern day equivalents of the Roman Empire, led by a charismatic skipper, adorned by some artistic craftsmen in the batting line-up, a scary line of seamers, a spinner with no equals and a keeper-batsman who could make the winds stop with his fiery striking prowess.
They had no reason to be daunted by this England outfit.
But as Steven Harmison, a vital cog in that England team, put it later, “When you're on a roll, it's very difficult to get knocked out of that, even if you're up against a great Australian side.”
The contest
First Test - Lord’s
July 21-25
Every conquest (let's call it that) in the history of the World has a path-breaking moment. England had theirs the moment Steven Harmison steamed in and hit Justin Langer on the elbow off the second ball of the opening Test of the series. The gutsy opener hung around to make 40 and watched his partner, the Hulk, Matthew Hayden, thumped on the helmet by another snorter. The skipper, Ricky Ponting, got a taste of Harmison too, when the ball rocked his helmet grille which in turn hit his cheek so hard that he had to visit the hospital.
Moment of the match
Harmison's raging spell set the tone for the series and showed that England were here to compete, much better than before.
Ponting recalls the horror first hour in a piece for the Telegraph, “Three guys were hit on the head in the first hour. It was all on: Test cricket the way you want to play it. When Steve Harmison hit me the ball pushed the helmet grille on to my cheekbone. At first I thought: ‘I'm in trouble here’ Then I looked around and thought: ‘No, I'm fine.’ I even started to take guard, but when I looked down at my bat I saw that I had blood all over my front.”
***
The Australians were bundled out for 190 but before England could bask in the joy of their pompous start, Glenn McGrath brought them back down to earth with a mesmerising spell 13-5-21-5. From 48/5, England had only one way to go but they hadn't quite expected their explosive, kinky-haired South African, Kevin Pietersen, to get them out of the rut, especially in Test cricket. He did. And admirably well. He looked England's best batsman on his debut, defending, attacking, flicking, pulling, all with the ease of opening a lid and England recovered.
But with just 155 on the board and conceding a lead of 25, the hosts knew they had to bowl well. Michael Clarke, named “Pup” for his relatively boyish looks, adjourned the “Australian” spirit in him to unleash a powerful knock, one that would take Aussies to a mighty total and dump England's hopes of saving the Test. Pietersen once again stood firm amidst the ruins, but England folded for 180 allowing the visitors a massive, confidence-boosting 239 run win.
Australia 190 (Harmison 5-43) & 384 (Clarke 91, Harmison 3-54); England 155 (Pietersen 57, McGrath 5-53) & 180 (Pietersen 64*, McGrath 4-29)
Second Test - Edgbaston
August 4-8
Collapsing twice for less than 200 wasn't the ideal start England would have wanted in their assay to regain the urn. Add to that the Aussie media’s taunts which went from England “spending too much time talking” to admonishing the vulnerability in their batting line-up, and the Aussies were right on top in the mind battle.
The Edgbaston was infamous for its ability to espouse with the side that bowled first. Since 1991, 12 of the 13 Tests at the venue had gone to the team that won the toss and opted to bowl. Ponting must have a thing for history for he barely glanced at the pitch before putting England in to bat, despite the fact that Glenn McGrath was on the sidelines after twisting his ankles.
The decision would change the course of the series and shift momentum England's way. "He's a lovely guy, that Ricky Ponting," said Geoffrey Boycott later as revealed by ESPNCricinfo. "He likes the English so much he changed the series with the most stupid decision he'll ever make in his life."
By Lunch on Day 1, Marcus Trescothick, who smashed Brett Lee for nine fours, and Andrew Strauss had laid seige. 118 came in the first session of the day and by end of day, England had 407 on board with Andrew Flintoff's 62-ball 68 studded with five maximums being the icing on the cake.
“I hit five sixes that day. Lee bowled a couple short and I pulled him twice for six - blind at one of them, didn't even know where it was. I used to have a technique of getting deep in my crease and to someone like Lee it works well because it puts you directly into his trajectory. Sometimes, the biggest sixes, you're not really trying,” Flintoff recalls on the Telegraph of his maniac knock that deflated the Aussies.
Australia responded with 308 but a 99 run lead was all England needed to drive home the advantage. Despite Shane Warne coming close to replicating the 'Ball of the Century’ by dismissing Strauss and adding five more to his bag, England had enough, courtesy Flintoff's 73, to put Australia under pressure.
Justin Langer and Matthew Hayden, though, started off with a bang and suddenly 282 didn't seem improbable. Then Flintoff delivered the over that would turn the course of this mesmeric series. He dismissed Langer with a sharp leg-cutter and then Ricky Ponting off the final ball of the over.
Shane Warne and Michael Clarke defied the English for long until Harmison outfoxed the latter with a well disguised slower delivery. Australia needed 107 to win and England needed two wickets as they trudged out for the fourth day.
A nerve-wracking climax saw the Aussie pair of Brett Lee and Michael Kasprowicz hang around for the final wicket to take Australia extremely close to victory. But victory eluded them as Steve Harmison bounced out Kasprowicz with Australia three runs away from victory.
Moment of the match
Amidst all the chaos in those final few moments, Andrew Flintoff's sportsman-like gesture would go down into the history books as one of the images of the series. He would console the gritty Brett Lee, who had fought through thick and thin to nearly script a memorable win for the Aussies.
What exactly Flintoff said would remain a mystery until the all-rounder himself jokingly claimed that he had gotten a little cheeky then, in an interview with the Guardian.
"I was taught as a kid always respect the opposition first and celebrate after, which I did. I went over to Brett Lee and shook his hand and there's that picture, where I whisper in his ear: 'It's 1-1, son.'"
Lee, however, remembers it as the time Flintoff offered him a hand. Sports would remember it forever as the “hand of consolation” which is the very essence of sports; acknowledging the fight in the opposition.
***
It was the closest victory in terms of runs in the history of Ashes and the Edgbaston crowd, which had witnessed the best humdinger of all-time five years back in a World Cup semi-final involving South Africa and Australia, bore witness to another marvel.
England 407 (Trecsothick 90, Pietersen 71, Flintoff 68, Warne 4-116) & 182 (Flintoff 73, Warne 6-46); Australia 308 (Langer 82, Ponting 61, Flintoff 3-52) & 279 (Lee 43*, Flintoff 4-79)
Third Test - Manchester
August 11-15
By now, the Ashes had reached orgasmic levels and the cricketing World knew that these teams were not going to back down.
The ever-pleasing-to-the-eye Michael Vaughan hadn't yet stamped his class in the series and did so with aplomb when he made use of a reprieve from Glenn McGrath (The Pigeon had him bowled off a no-ball) to compile 166 and take England to 444 in the first innings.
Matthew Hoggard swung the brand new cherry while Simon Jones reverse swung the ball to leave Australia in a mess at 210/7 at stumps on Day 2.
Then Shane Warne, who had taken his 600th wicket earlier in the Test, carved out a special innings, a spirited, back against the wall, heroic 90 that would take Australia to safety. Of course, any series in England would be incomplete without the rains and they showed up to save the visitors on day 3.
Simon Jones cleaned up the tail the next day to finish with a six-fer as Australia folded for 302, a long way off from England's first innings score.
England were swift to attack and ramped up the scoring rate to enforce a declaration, which they eventually did with a few overs left before stumps on day 4. Needing 423 to win, Australian openers held on for the day to leave them unscathed.
But surviving the fifth day was a daunting task. There was a huge influx of fans to the stadium, something which Michael Vaughan recalls as his “greatest Ashes memory”.
"I thought there was a bomb scare when I arrived at Old Trafford on that day. I arrived at 9.30, went on the balcony and the ground was full. As I said to the boys, 'This is special'. We went out of the dressing room just to warm up and the whole ground lifted and stood to their feet to cheer us,” Vaughan had said sometime after the series as revealed by ESPNCricinfo.
Australia seemingly lost their way at the start before Ponting, still seething from his misjudgment in the previous Test, stole the thunder with a spectacular hundred, one of the most defiant knocks in the history of the Ashes. His 156 paved way for a resounding reply from the Aussies to England's humungous target.
And then, a repeat of what happened in the last Test unfolded.
Moment of the match
Brett Lee was once again stuck with the no.11, this time Glenn McGrath, who had recorded his worst ever figures in the first innings, with Australia needing to play out 24 balls to draw the game. Lee buried his demons with an obdurate knock, one which the Aussies would forever be grateful for, as Australia celebrated a draw. It is said that the English skipper, Michael Vaughan summoned his troops and delivered a crunching talk after the exhilarating final moments, boosting them with the words - “Look at that balcony [Australia's] over there celebrating a draw. They'd never have done that in the past. We go to Trent Bridge and we'll turn them over there.”
***
If you haven't watched this live, the synopsis would do little justice to the apprehensive few minutes at Manchester. The onus was on Lee to defy the English this time around and he did, setting the Australian dressing room into celebrations for a draw, something which England thought of as a victory in itself.
England 444 (Vaughan 166) & 280-6dec (Strauss 106, McGrath 5-115); Australia 302 (Warne 90, Jones 6-53) & 371-9 (Ponting 156, Flintoff 4-71)
Fourth Test - Trent Bridge
August 25-28
The Poms took Vaughan's words to heart and unfurled their best performance of the summer (atleast until that final innings) to go 2-1 ahead in the Ashes. Shane Warne was by now bowling with renewed vigour and purpose and looked like every bit the wizard that had spun out Mike Gatting on his Ashes debut. But England were undeterred.
Flintoff, growing rapidly into his Botham-sized clothes, batted unlike...well, Andrew Flintoff, to make a 132 ball ton that included just one maximum. That and his century stand with Geraint Jones took England to 477. But he wasn't the only Jones Australia had to contend with. There was Simon Jones, who was quickly earning a reputation as the best exponent of reverse swing on the planet, and Australia had succumbed to him at Manchester but no lessons were learned.
The seamer picked up his five-wicket haul and England enforced a follow-on, the first time the visitors were doing the same in 17 years. Aussies were not backing down either and compiled a 100 runs in one session despite losing Matthew Hayden.
Then drama unfolded.
Moment of the match
Simon Jones broke down to an ankle injury, one which would see his promising career come to a grinding halt, and the substitute fielder, Gary Pratt, ran out the Aussie skipper.
If Jonty Rhodes’s run-out of Inzamam-ul-Haq in the 1992 World Cup altered the landscape of fielding in cricket, this run-out scripted another memorable tale, one of elation, anger, outburst and ultimately, defeat.
Ponting fumed off expressing his displeasure at England’s supposed tactic of using substitutes on the field every now and then to allegedly keep their bowlers fresh. “I hear Gary Pratt isn't even playing at first-class level any more, but he certainly made a name for himself that day,” Ponting said later in his summary of the series for Telegraph.
"I did not actually think it at the time but, looking back now, that might have been the moment when it became clear England were going to reclaim the Ashes," writes Fletcher in Ashes Regained, a book he later published on the series. "This was an Australian side under enormous pressure. The mental strain was becoming so much that they were grasping any opportunity – however ludicrous – to hit back at us."
***
Australia's resurrection lost direction after that as their innings came to an end at 387 with England needing 129 to win.
True to the reputation of the series, England made a meal of the small target and lost seven before Ashley Giles and Matthew Hoggard took them home to effectively come within touching distance of reclaiming the Ashes.
“I was batting with Kevin, under control and Lee came on and just did us for pace. My bat was here and off stump was cartwheeling back. In hindsight and through the clarity of not being in the position I was in then, we were going to win but we just got a bit carried away. We were seven down. We only needed 10 runs, and then Hoggy went out there and played a blinder. He hit that cover drive off a full toss! And then Giles just turned one to win. I couldn't watch, I think I was punching Straussy, just to vent something...," Flintoff reveals as reported by ESPNCricinfo of the final few moments in that tense game.
England 477 (Flintoff 102) & 129-7 (Warne 4-31); Australia 218 (Jones 5-44) & following on 387 (Langer 61, Katich 59, Harmison 3-93)
Fifth Test - The Oval
September 8-12
The fate of the urn wasn't decided yet, although England couldn't lose the series from here. An Aussie win would mean the urn would remain Down Under and England just couldn't afford that after the kind of effort they had churned out in the series.
Andrew Strauss led the way with his maiden ton in Ashes as England but Matthew Hayden promptly replied with one of his own as the teams split near even in the first innings. The fate of the urn would depend on the fateful second innings of both teams with England leading by a mere six runs. Such had been the series that even a run’s lead accounted for something and England seemed to take belief from that when they came out to bat in a crucial second innings.
Glenn McGrath had Michael Vaughan and Ian Bell off successive balls to put the Poms at 67/3 but with Kevin Pietersen out in the middle, Australia couldn't afford to lag behind. McGrath almost nipped him out first ball with a snorter of a bouncer but the blue-haired golden boy survived.
Then the unthinkable happened.
Moment of the match
Brett Lee was steaming in now, rejuvenated by McGrath's show, and eked out an edge off Kevin Pietersen only to see Shane Warne grass a sitter at slip cordon. The Aussie spinner had barely done anything wrong the whole series but put down the catch the Aussies sorely needed to retain the Ashes.
When it is Kevin Pietersen, he makes you pay. All England needed was a draw on this final day but Pietersen wasn't in the mood to slow down. He was a boulder rolled down a smooth mountain-side, unstoppable, rampaging, bullying and bulldozing the Aussies to submission.
***
“You start hitting, you just go for everything, out of fear, out of adrenaline. I think that's what was happening with Kevin that day. He was unbelievable,” Flintoff later tells of watching Pietersen on that day as revealed by ESPNCricinfo.
His 158 ensured that Australia had little time to bat - four balls they got in all before bad light stopped play - and the Ashes was well and truly back in England.
England 373 (Strauss 129, Warne 6-122) & 335 (Pietersen 156, Warne 6-124); Australia 367 (Hayden 138, Langer 105, Flintoff 5-78, Hoggard 4-97) & 0-0
“In our heart of hearts believing
Victory crowns the just,
And that braggarts must
Surely bite the dust,
Press we to the field ungrieving,
In our heart of hearts believing
Victory crowns the just.”
-Thomas Hardy
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