The Ashes is argurably the most famous cricketing rivalry in the world. It's contested between Australia and England. On this day in 1977, England regained the Ashes after taking a 3-0 lead in the 5 match series. The history of The Ashes is both storied and fascinating
The origin of the Ashes goes back to 1882. The term originated in a satirical obituary published in a British newspaper, The Sporting Times, immediately after Australia's 1882 victory at The Oval, their first Test win on English soil. The obituary stated that English cricket had died and that "the body will be cremated and the ashes taken to Australia".
The mythical ashes immediately became associated with the 1882–83 series played in Australia, before which the English captain, Ivo Bligh, had vowed to "regain those ashes." The English media therefore dubbed the tour the quest to regain The Ashes.
After England won two of the three Tests on the tour, a small urn was presented to Bligh in Melbourne. The contents of the urn are reputed to be the ashes of a wooden bail and were humorously described as "the ashes of Australian cricket." It's not clear whether that "tiny silver urn" is the same as the small terracotta urn given to Marylebone Cricket Club (MCC) by Bligh's widow after his death in 1927.
The Ashes urn has never been the official trophy of the series, having been a personal gift to Bligh but replicas of the urn have often been held aloft by the winning team as a symbol of their victory. Since the 1998–99 Ashes series, the Ashes Trophy, a Waterford Crystal trophy modelled on the Ashes urn, has been presented to the winners of the series.
Irrespective of which side holds the trophy, the original urn remains in the MCC Museum at Lord's. It has been taken to Australia twice to be put on touring display, as part of the Australian Bicentenary celebrations in 1988 and to accompany the Ashes series in 2006–07.
Ashes series have usually consisted of five Tests, hosted in turn by England and Australia approximately every two years. The Ashes are regarded as being held by the team that most recently won the series. If the series is drawn, the team that currently holds the Ashes "retains" the trophy.
The momentous defeat was widely recorded in the British press, which praised the Australians for their plentiful "pluck" and berated the Englishmen for their lack thereof. A celebrated poem appeared in Punch on Saturday, 9 September. The first verse, quoted most frequently, reads:
Well done, Cornstalks! Whipt us
Fair and square,
Was it luck that tript us?
Was it scare?
Kangaroo Land's 'Demon', or our own
Want of 'devil', coolness, nerve, backbone?
On 31 August, in the Charles Alcock-edited magazine Cricket: A Weekly Record of The Game, there appeared a mock obituary:
SACRED TO THE MEMORY
OF
ENGLAND'S SUPREMACY IN THE
CRICKET-FIELD
WHICH EXPIRED
ON THE 29TH DAY OF AUGUST, AT THE OVAL
"ITS END WAS PEATE"
On 2 September, a more celebrated mock obituary, written by Reginald Shirley Brooks, appeared in The Sporting Times. It read:
Later in 1882, following the famous Australian victory at The Oval, Bligh led an England team to Australia, as he said, To "recover those ashes." Publicity surrounding the series was intense, and it was at some time during this series that the Ashes urn was crafted. Australia won the First Test by nine wickets, but in the next two England were victorious. At the end of the Third Test, England were generally considered to have "won back the Ashes" 2–1.
A fourth match was played, against a "United Australian XI," which was arguably stronger than the Australian sides that had competed in the previous three matches; this game, however, isn't generally considered part of the 1882–83 series. It is counted as a Test but as a standalone. This match ended in a victory for Australia.
After Bligh's victory, there was an extended period of English dominance. The tours generally had fewer Tests in the 1880s and 1890s than people have grown accustomed to in more recent years, the first five-Test series taking place only in 1894–95. England lost only four Ashes Tests in the 1880s out of 23 played, and they won all the seven series contested.
There was more chopping and changing in the teams, given that there was no official board of selectors for each country (in 1887–88, two separate English teams were on tour in Australia) and popularity with the fans varied. The 1890's games were more closely fought, Australia taking its first series win since 1882 with a 2–1 victory in 1891–92. England dominated, winning the next three series to 1896 despite continuing player disputes.
The 1894–95 series began in sensational fashion when England won the First Test at Sydney by just 10 runs having followed-on. England went on to win the series 3–2 after it had been all square before the Final Test, which England won by 6 wickets. The English heroes were Peel, with 27 wickets in the series at an average of 26.70 and Tom Richardson, with 32 at 26.53.
In 1896, England under the captaincy of W. G. Grace, won the series 2–1 and this marked the end of England's longest period of Ashes dominance.
Australia resoundingly won the 1897–98 series by 4–1 under the captaincy of Harry Trott. His successor, Joe Darling, won the next three series in 1899, 1901–02 and the classic 1902 series, which became one of the most famous in the history of Test cricket.
Five matches were played in 1902 but the first two were drawn after being hit by bad weather. In the first Test (the first played at Edgbaston), after scoring 376 England bowled out Australia for 36 (Wilfred Rhodes 7/17) and reduced them to 46–2 when they followed on. Australia won the Third and Fourth Tests at Bramall Lane and Old Trafford, respectively.
At Old Trafford, Australia won by just 3 runs after Victor Trumper had scored 104 on a "bad wicket," reaching his hundred before lunch on the first day. England won the last Test at The Oval by one wicket. Chasing 263 to win, they slumped to 48–5 before Gilbert Jessop's 104 gave them a chance. He reached his hundred in just 75 minutes. The last-wicket pair of George Hirst and Rhodes were required to score 15 runs for victory. When Rhodes joined him, Hirst reportedly said: "We'll get them in singles, Wilfred." In fact, they scored thirteen singles and a two.
The period of Darling's captaincy saw the emergence of outstanding Australian players such as: Victor Trumper; Warwick Armstrong; James Kelly; Monty Noble; Clem Hill; Hugh Trumble and Ernie Jones.
After what the MCC saw as the problems of the earlier professional and amateur series they decided to take control of organising tours themselves and this led to the first MCC tour of Australia in 1903–04. England won it against the odds and Plum Warner, the England captain, wrote up his version of the tour in his book, How We Recovered The Ashes. The title of this book revived the Ashes legend and it was after this that England v Australia series were customarily referred to as "The Ashes".
From 1905 until the onset of World War I, England and Australia were evenly matched. Five more series took place between 1905 and 1912. In 1905, England's captain, Stanley Jackson, not only won the series 2–0. but also won the toss in all five matches and headed both the batting and the bowling averages. Monty Noble led Australia to victory in both 1907–08 and 1909. Then England won in 1911–12 by four matches to one. Jack Hobbs establishing himself as England's first-choice opening batsman with three centuries, while Frank Foster (32 wickets at 21.62) and Sydney Barnes (34 wickets at 22.88) formed a formidable bowling partnership.
England retained the Ashes when it won the 1912 Triangular Tournament, which also featured South Africa. The Australian touring party had been severely weakened by a dispute between the board and players that caused Clem Hill, Victor Trumper, Warwick Armstrong, Tibby Cotter, Sammy Carter and Vernon Ransford to be omitted.
After the war, Australia took firm control of both the Ashes and world cricket. For the first time, the tactic of using two express bowlers in tandem paid off as Jack Gregory and Ted McDonald crippled the English batting on a regular basis. Australia recorded overwhelming victories both in England and on home soil. It won the first eight matches in succession including a 5–0 whitewash in 1920–1921 at the hands of Warwick Armstrong's team.
The ruthless and belligerent Armstrong led his team back to England in 1921 where his men lost only two games late in the tour to narrowly miss out of being the first team to complete a tour of England without defeat.
England won only one Test out of 15 from the end of the war until 1925.
In a rain-hit series in 1926, England managed to eke out a 1–0 victory with a win in the final Test at The Oval. it was because the series was at stake, the match was to be "timeless," i.e., played to a finish. Australia had a narrow first innings lead of 22. Jack Hobbs and Herbert Sutcliffe took the score to 49–0 at the end of the second day, a lead of 27. Heavy rain fell overnight and next day the pitch soon developed into a traditional sticky wicket.
England seemed doomed to be bowled out cheaply and to lose the match. In spite of the very difficult batting conditions, however, Hobbs and Sutcliffe took their partnership to 172 before Hobbs was out for exactly 100. Sutcliffe went on to make 161 and England won the game comfortably. Australian captain Herbie Collins was stripped of all captaincy positions down to club level and some accused him of throwing the match.
Australia's ageing post-war team broke up after 1926, with Collins, Charlie Macartney and Warren Bardsley all departing and Gregory breaking down at the start of the 1928–29 series.
Despite the debut of Donald Bradman, the inexperienced Australians, led by Jack Ryder, were heavily defeated, losing 4–1. England had a very strong batting side, with Wally Hammond contributing 905 runs at an average of 113.12 and Hobbs, Sutcliffe and Patsy Hendren all scoring heavily; the bowling was more than adequate, without being outstanding.
In 1930, Bill Woodfull led an extremely inexperienced team to England.
Bradman fulfilled his promise in the 1930 series when he scored 974 runs at 139.14, which remains a world record Test series aggregate. A modest Bradman can be heard in a 1930 recording saying, "I have always endeavoured to do my best for the side and the few centuries that have come my way have been achieved in the hope of winning matches. My one idea when going into bat was to make runs for Australia."
In the Headingley Test, he made 334, reaching 309* at the end of the first day, including a century before lunch. Bradman himself thought that his 254 in the preceding match, at Lord's, was a better innings. England managed to stay in contention until the deciding final Test at The Oval but yet another double hundred by Bradman and 7/92 by Percy Hornibrook in England's second innings, enabled Australia to win by an innings and take the series 2–1. Clarrie Grimmett's 29 wickets at 31.89 for Australia in this high-scoring series were also important.
Australia had one of the strongest batting line-ups ever in the early 1930's, with: Bradman; Archie Jackson; Stan McCabe; Bill Woodfull; Bill Ponsford and Jack Fingleton. It was the prospect of bowling at this line-up that caused England's 1932–33 captain, Douglas Jardine, to adopt the tactic of fast leg theory, better known as Bodyline.
Jardine instructed his fast bowlers, most notably Harold Larwood and Bill Voce, to bowl at the bodies of the Australian batsmen, with the goal of forcing them to defend their bodies with their bats, thus providing easy catches to a stacked leg-side field. Jardine insisted that the tactic was legitimate and called it "leg theory" but it was widely disparaged by its opponents, who dubbed it "Bodyline" (from "on the line of the body"). Although England decisively won the Ashes 4–1, Bodyline caused such a furore in Australia that diplomats had to intervene to prevent serious harm to Anglo-Australian relations, and the MCC eventually changed the Laws of cricket to curtail the number of leg side fielders.
Jardine's comment was: "I've not travelled 6,000 miles to make friends. I'm here to win The Ashes."
Some of the Australians wanted to use Bodyline in retaliation but Woodfull flatly refused. He famously told England manager Pelham Warner, "There are two teams out there. One is playing cricket; the other is making no attempt to do so" after the latter had come into the Australian rooms to express sympathy after a Larwood bouncer had struck the Australian skipper in the heart and felled him.
The 1934 Ashes series began with the notable absence of Larwood, Voce and Jardine. The MCC had made it clear, in light of the revelations of the bodyline series, that these players would not face Australia. The MCC, although it had earlier condoned and encouraged bodyline tactics in the 1932–33 series, laid the blame on Larwood when relations turned sour. Larwood was forced by the MCC to either apologise or be removed from the Test side. He went for the latter.
Australia recovered the Ashes in 1934 and held onto them until 1953, though no Test cricket was played during World War II.
In 1948, Australia set new standards, completely outplaying its hosts to win 4–0 with one draw. This Australian team, led by Bradman, who turned 40 during his final tour of England, has gone down in history as The Invincibles. Playing 34 matches on tour - three of which were not first-class - and including the five Tests, they remained unbeaten, winning 27 and drawing 7.
Bradman's men were greeted by packed crowds across the country and records for Test attendances in England were set in the second and fourth Tests at Lord's and Headingley, respectively. Before a record attendance of spectators at Headingley, Australia set a world record by chasing down 404 on the last day for a seven-wicket victory.
The Ashes resumed after the war when England toured in 1946–47 and as in 1920–21, found that Australia had made the better post-war recovery. Still captained by Bradman and now featuring the potent new-ball partnership of Ray Lindwall and Keith Miller, Australia were convincing 3–0 winners.
The 1948 series ended with one of the most poignant moments in cricket history, as Bradman played his final innings for Australia in the Fifth Test at The Oval, needing to score only four runs to end with a career batting average of exactly 100. However, Bradman made a second-ball duck, bowled by an Eric Hollies googly that sent him into retirement with a career average of 99.94.
In 1954–55, Australia's batsmen had no answer to the pace of Frank Tyson and Statham. After winning the first Test by an innings after being controversially sent in by Hutton, Australia lost its way and England took a hat-trick of victories to win the series 3–1.
A dramatic series in 1956 saw a record that will probably never be beaten: off-spinner Jim Laker's monumental effort at Old Trafford when he bowled 68 of 191 overs to take 19 out of 20 possible Australian wickets in the fourth Test.
It was Australia's second consecutive innings defeat in a wet summer and the hosts were in strong positions in the two drawn Tests, in which half the playing time was washed out. Bradman rated the team that won the series 2–1 as England's best ever.
England's dominance was not to last. Australia won 4–0 in 1958–59, having found a high-quality spinner of their own in new skipper, Richie Benaud, who took 31 wickets in the five-Test series and paceman Alan Davidson, who took 24 wickets at 19.00. The series was overshadowed by the furore over various Australian bowlers, most notably, Ian Meckiff, whom the English management and media accused of illegally throwing Australia to victory.
In 1961, Australia won a hard-fought series 2–1, their first Ashes series win in England for 13 years. After narrowly winning the second Test at Lord's, dubbed "The Battle of the Ridge" because of a protrusion on the pitch that caused erratic bounce, Australia mounted a comeback on the final day of the Fourth Test at Old Trafford and sealed the series with Richie Benaud taking 6-70 during the English runchase.
The tempo of the play changed over the next four series in the 1960s, held in 1962–63, 1964, 1965–66 and 1968. The powerful array of bowlers that both countries boasted in the preceding decade moved into retirement, and their replacements were of lesser quality, making it more difficult to force a result. England failed to win any series during the 1960's, a period dominated by draws as teams found it more prudent to save face than risk losing. Of the 20 Tests played during the four series, Australia won four and England three. As they held the Ashes, Australia's captains Bob Simpson and Bill Lawry were happy to adopt safety-first tactics and their strategy of sedate batting saw many draws. During this period, spectator attendances dropped and media condemnation increase but Simpson and Lawry flatly disregarded the public dissatisfaction.
It was in the 1960's that the bipolar dominance of England and Australia in world cricket was seriously challenged for the first time. West Indies defeated England twice in the mid-1960s and South Africa, in two series before they were banned for Apartheid, completely outplayed Australia 3–1 and 4–0. Australia had lost 2–1 during a tour of the West Indies in 1964–65, the first time it had lost a series to any team other than England.
In 1970–71, Ray Illingworth led England to a 2–0 win in Australia, mainly due to John Snow's fast bowling and the prolific batting of Geoffrey Boycott and John Edrich. It was not until the last session of what was the 7th Test (one match having been abandoned without a ball bowled) that England's success was secured. Lawry was sacked after the sixth Test after the selectors finally lost patience with Australia's lack of success and dour strategy. Lawry was not informed of the decision privately and heard his fate over the radio.
The 1972 series finished 2–2, with England under Illingworth retaining the Ashes.[35]
In the 1974–75 series, with the England team breaking up and their best batsman Geoff Boycott refusing to play, Australian pace bowlers Jeff Thomson and Dennis Lillee wreaked havoc. A 4–1 result was a fair reflection as England were left shell shocked.[36] England then lost the 1975 series 0–1, but at least restored some pride under new captain Tony Greig.[37]
Australia won the 1977 Centenary Test, which wasn't an Ashes contest. A storm then broke as Kerry Packer announced his intention to form World Series Cricket (WSC). WSC affected all Test-playing nations but it weakened Australia especially as the bulk of its players had signed up with Packer; the Australian Cricket Board (ACB) wouldn't select WSC-contracted players and an almost completely new Test team had to be formed. WSC came after an era during which the duopoly of Australian and English dominance dissipated; the Ashes had long been seen as a cricket world championship but the rise of the West Indies in the late 1970s challenged that view. The West Indies would go on to record resounding Test series wins over Australia and England and dominated world cricket until the 1990s.
In 1982–83, Australia had Greg Chappell back from WSC as captain, while the England team was weakened by the enforced omission of their South African tour rebels, particularly, Graham Gooch and John Emburey. Australia went 2–0 up after three Tests but England won the Fourth Test by 3 runs (after a 70-run last wicket stand) to set up the final decider, which was drawn.
In 1985, David Gower's England team was strengthened by the return of Gooch and Emburey as well as the emergence at international level of Tim Robinson and Mike Gatting. Australia, now captained by Allan Border, had itself been weakened by a rebel South African tour, the loss of Terry Alderman being a particular factor. England won 3–1.
Despite suffering heavy defeats against the West Indies during the 1980s, England continued to do well in the Ashes. Mike Gatting was the captain in 1986–87 but his team started badly and attracted some criticism. Then Chris Broad scored three hundreds in successive Tests and bowling successes from Graham Dilley and Gladstone Small meant England won the series 2–1.
The Australian team of 1989 was comparable to the great Australian teams of the past and resoundingly defeated England 4–0. Well led by Allan Border, the team included the young cricketers: Mark Taylor; Merv Hughes; David Boon; Ian Healy and Steve Waugh, who were all to prove long-serving and successful Ashes competitors. England, now led once again by David Gower, suffered from injuries and poor form.
During the fourth Test, news broke that prominent England players had agreed to take part in a "rebel tour" of South Africa the following winter; three of them (Tim Robinson, Neil Foster and John Emburey) were playing in the match and were subsequently dropped from the England side.
Australia reached a cricketing peak in the 1990s and early 2000s, coupled with a general decline in England's fortunes. After re-establishing its credibility in 1989, Australia underlined its superiority with victories in the 1990–91, 1993, 1994–95, 1997, 1998–99, 2001 and 2002–03 series, all by convincing margins.
In the latter part of the 1990s, Waugh himself, along with his twin brother, Mark, scored heavily for Australia and fast bowlers, Glenn McGrath and Jason Gillespie made a serious impact, especially the former. The wicketkeeper-batsman position was held by Ian Healy for most of the 1990s and by Adam Gilchrist from 2001 to 2006–07. In the 2000s, batsmen Justin Langer, Damien Martyn and Matthew Hayden became noted players for Australia. The most dominant Australian player was leg-spinner Shane Warne, whose first delivery in Ashes cricket in 1993, to dismiss Mike Gatting, became known as the Ball of the Century.
Australia's record between 1989 and 2005 had a significant impact on the statistics between the two sides. Before the 1989 series began, the win–loss ratio was almost even, with 87 test wins for Australia to England's 86 and 74 tests having been drawn.
By the 2005 series, Australia's Test wins had increased to 115, whereas England's had increased to only 93 (with 82 draws). In the period between 1989 and the beginning of the 2005 series, the two sides had played 43 times; Australia winning 28 times, England 7 times, with 8 draws. Only a single England victory had come in a match in which the Ashes were still at stake, namely the first Test of the 1997 series. All others were consolation victories when the Ashes had been secured by Australia.
England were undefeated in Test matches through the 2004 calendar year. This elevated them to second in the ICC Test Championship. Hopes that the 2005 Ashes series would be closely fought proved well-founded, the series remaining undecided as the closing session of the final Test began. Experienced journalists including Richie Benaud rated the series as the most exciting in living memory. It has been compared with the great series of the distant past, such as 1894–95 and 1902.
The first Test at Lord's was convincingly won by Australia but in the remaining four matches the teams were evenly matched and England fought back to win the second Test by 2 runs, the smallest winning margin in Ashes history and the second-smallest in all Tests. The rain-affected third Test ended with the last two Australian batsmen holding out for a draw. England won the fourth Test by three wickets after forcing Australia to follow-on for the first time in 191 Tests. A draw in the final Test gave England victory in an Ashes series for the first time in 18 years and their first Ashes victory at home since 1985.
Australia regained the Ashes on its home turf in the 2006–07 series with a convincing 5–0 victory, only the second time an Ashes series had been won by that margin. Shane Warne, Glenn McGrath and Justin Langer retired from Test cricket after that series, while Damien Martyn retired during the series.
The 2009 series began with a tense draw in the first Test at SWALEC Stadium in Cardiff, with England's last-wicket batsmen James Anderson and Monty Panesar surviving 69 balls. England then achieved its first Ashes win at Lord's since 1934 to go 1–0 up. After a rain-affected draw at Edgbaston, the fourth match at Headingley was convincingly won by Australia by an innings and 80 runs to level the series. Finally, England won the fifth Test at The Oval by a margin of 197 runs to regain the Ashes. Andrew Flintoff retired from Test cricket soon afterwards.
The 2010–11 series was played in Australia. The First Test at Brisbane ended in a draw but England won the Second Test, at Adelaide, by an innings and 71 runs. Australia came back with a victory at Perth in the third Test. In the fourth Test at Melbourne Cricket Ground, England batting second scored 513 to defeat Australia (98 and 258) by an innings and 157 runs. This gave England an unbeatable 2–1 lead in the series and so it retained the Ashes. England went on to win the series 3–1, beating Australia by an innings and 83 runs at Sydney in the fifth Test, including their highest innings total since 1938 (644).
England's series victory was its first on Australian soil for 24 years. The 2010–11 Ashes series was the only one in which a team had won three Tests by innings margins and it was the first time England had scored 500 or more four times in a single series. England opener Cook scored 766 runs at average 127.66 in the series, the most dominant batsman in an Ashes series since Bradman in 1930.
Australia's build-up to the 2013 Ashes series was far from ideal. Darren Lehmann took over as coach from Mickey Arthur following a string of poor results. A batting line-up weakened by the previous year's retirements of former captain, Ricky Ponting and Mike Hussey was also shorn of opener David Warner, who was suspended for the start of the series following an off-field incident.
England won a closely fought First Test by 14 runs, despite 19-year-old debutant Ashton Agar making a world-record 98 for a number 11 in the first innings. England then won a very one-sided second Test by 347 runs while the rain-affected third Test, held at a newly refurbished Old Trafford, was drawn, ensuring that England retained the Ashes.
England won the fourth Test by 74 runs after Australia lost their last eight second-innings wickets for only 86 runs. The final Test was drawn, giving England a 3–0 series win.
In the second of two Ashes series held in 2013 (the series ended in 2014), this time hosted by Australia, the home team won the series five test matches to nil. This was the third time Australia had completed a clean sweep (or "whitewash") in Ashes history, a feat never matched by England. All six Australian specialist batsmen scored more runs than any Englishman with 10 centuries among them, with only debutant Ben Stokes scoring a century for England. Mitchell Johnson took 37 English wickets at 13.97 and Ryan Harris 22 wickets at 19.31 in the 5-Test series.
Only Stuart Broad and all-rounder Stokes bowled effectively for England, with their spinner Graeme Swann retiring due to a chronic elbow injury after the decisive third Test.
Australia came into the 2015 Ashes series in England as favourites to retain the Ashes. Although England won the first Test in Cardiff, Australia won comfortably in the second Test at Lords. In the next two Tests, the Australian batsmen struggled, being bowled out for 136 in the first innings at Edgbaston, with England proceeding to win by eight wickets. This was followed by Australia being bowled out for 60 as Stuart Broad took 8 for 15 in the first innings at Trent Bridge, the quickest – in terms of balls faced – a team has been bowled out in the first innings of a Test match. With victory by an innings and 78 runs on the morning of the third day of the Fourth Test, England regained the Ashes.
During the build up, the 2017–18 Ashes series was regarded as a turning point for both sides. Australia were criticised for being too reliant on captain, Steve Smith and vice-captain, David Warner, while England was said to have a shoddy middle to lower order. Off the field, England all-rounder, Ben Stokes, was ruled out of the side indefinitely due to a police investigation.
Australia won the first Test match in Brisbane by 10 wickets and the second Test at Adelaide by 120 runs in the first ever day-night Ashes test match. Australia regained The Ashes with an innings and 41 run win in the third Test at Perth; the final Ashes Test at the WACA Ground.
Prior to the 2019 Ashes series, both teams were considered to have very strong bowling attacks but struggling batting orders. Australia had its top-order batsmen David Warner, Steve Smith and Cameron Bancroft available for international selection after being banned from international cricket for 9–12 months following the ball-tampering scandal in South Africa, during which time India had won its first ever Test series in Australia. However, Australia recovered to win the Test series against Sri Lanka 2–0.
Despite winning the Cricket World Cup in July 2019 for the first time, England had also been criticised for its fragile top-order in Tests. The retirement of opener, Alastair Cook in August 2018 ensured potential top-order batsmen Rory Burns, Joe Denly and Jason Roy were able to secure a place in the side. Despite losing a Test series 2–1 in their tour of the West Indies England then improved to win the one-off Test against Ireland, by 143 runs. The 2019 series was eventually drawn 2–2, with Australia retaining the Ashes.
The 2021-22 Ashes series was played from December 2021 through January 2022 and featured the first Ashes Test match to be played in Tasmania, at Hobart's Bellerive Oval. Australia retained the Ashes in the 2021–22 Ashes series, after comfortably beating England 4–0.
England were the hosts of the five Test matches of the 2023 Ashes series. The series got off to a good start for Australia as they won the first two Tests to go 0-2 up. The hosts won the third Test to put the series at 1-2 for the visitors. England needed to win the fourth Test in a hope to not only level the series but prevent Australia from retaining the Ashes. The match looked good for England to win but rain intervened on the last two days and forced a draw, thus Australia retained the Ashes with the series at 1-2 after four Tests.
The fifth and final Test was played at The Oval. During the contest, Stuart Broad announced that he would retire from cricket at the end of the match. England went on to win the final Test match to draw the series at 2-2.
As it has been seen, The Ashes is and will always be, hotly contested. It seems to me that Australia are more dominant. I am by no means complaining. No offence to any English fans/supporters reading this but I'm thrilled by this. Whenever The Ashes takes place, I always root for Australia to win.