Overview
By April 2005, Australia was the unquestioned dominant force in international cricket. The team held the ICC Cricket World Cup title won in the 2003 edition (held in South Africa, Zimbabwe, and Kenya, with the final on 23 March 2003 at Johannesburg’s Wanderers Stadium, where Australia defeated India by 125 runs). That victory had been Australia’s second consecutive World Cup (after 1999) and third overall (1987, 1999, 2003). Australian sides of this era also set a record of 16 consecutive Test-match victories under Steve Waugh between October 1999 and February 2001 — a mark Ricky Ponting’s team would later equal (2005–2008) but which has never been surpassed.
Yet 2005 would prove a watershed year. Australia’s grip on the Ashes — the oldest rivalry in international cricket — would be broken by England in a summer Test series regarded by many observers as the greatest Ashes contest ever played.
Australia’s Cricket Dominance: 2001–2004
The Australian cricket team of the early 2000s is widely considered one of the greatest sporting dynasties in history. Under the captaincy of Steve Waugh (1999–2004) and then Ricky Ponting (2004–2011), Australia held the number-one ICC Test ranking continuously from 2001 through 2009. Their squad included multiple all-time greats active simultaneously: Shane Warne (the highest wicket-taking leg-spinner in history, with 708 Test wickets at career’s end), Glenn McGrath (563 Test wickets), Matthew Hayden (who briefly held the record for highest individual Test score in 2003), Adam Gilchrist (whose wicketkeeping and attacking batting redefined the wicket-keeper role), and Ponting himself (who accumulated 13,378 Test runs over his career).
Australia had held the Ashes since 1989 — a stretch of 16 years and eight series by the time the 2005 campaign began. England had not won an Ashes series since Mike Gatting’s team prevailed in 1986–87. The scale of Australian cricket dominance by April 2005 made England’s eventual victory later that year all the more remarkable.
The 2005 Ashes Series
The 2005 Ashes series was played in England from 21 July to 12 September 2005, comprising five Test matches. The Australian touring party, led by Ponting, was widely expected to retain the Ashes; England’s team, captained by Michael Vaughan and coached by Duncan Fletcher, had improved significantly over the preceding three years but remained considered underdogs.
First Test — Lord’s (21–24 July)
Australia won convincingly by 239 runs, with Glenn McGrath taking 9 wickets across both innings. The result appeared to confirm expectations.
Second Test — Edgbaston (4–7 August)
The defining match of the series. Chasing 282 to win, Australia resumed the final morning needing 107 with only two wickets in hand — and came agonisingly close, driven by a last-wicket stand between Brett Lee and Michael Kasprowicz. England’s bowlers, led by Andrew “Freddie” Flintoff, held on: Australia fell 2 runs short, losing by 2 runs in one of the closest and most dramatic finishes in Test history. The match is frequently ranked among the greatest Test matches ever played.
Third Test — Old Trafford (11–15 August)
A tense draw, with Australia requiring 4 wickets and England needing 1 run for victory when rain prevented a final-day result. Ricky Ponting played a heroic rearguard innings of 156.
Fourth Test — Trent Bridge (25–28 August)
England won by 3 wickets, taking a 2-1 series lead with one match to play. Flintoff again was decisive with both bat (68 runs in a critical innings) and ball (5 wickets).
Fifth Test — The Oval (8–12 September)
England needed only a draw to win the Ashes, and achieved it. Kevin Pietersen — in only his fifth Test match — scored an extraordinary 158 runs to bat England to safety over the final day. Australia, for the first time since 1989, could not reclaim the urn. England retained the Ashes with a 2-1 series victory — the final match a draw.
Reactions and Legacy
England’s victory on 12 September 2005 prompted extraordinary celebrations. An estimated 100,000 people lined the streets of London for an open-top bus parade through the city the following day, the first cricket-related civic parade of that scale in England. The squad was awarded MBEs (Members of the Order of the British Empire) in the subsequent New Year Honours. Michael Vaughan and Andrew Flintoff became national figures; Flintoff’s image — consoling Australian batsman Brett Lee at the end of the Edgbaston Test — became one of the iconic sporting photographs of the decade.
Australia would go on to reclaim the Ashes with a crushing 5-0 whitewash in the 2006–07 series held in Australia, and would retain the next World Cup title in 2007 (West Indies). But for a brief autumn of 2005, England cricket existed in a state of euphoria not experienced since 1981.
The ICC Super Series 2005
A separate significant cricket event of 2005 was the ICC Super Series, held in Australia in October 2005 — a one-off Test match and three ODIs pitting Australia against an ICC World XI, intended as a celebration of cricket’s global breadth. Australia won both the Test (by 210 runs, 14–18 October at the Melbourne Cricket Ground) and the ODI series (3-0). The event attracted strong television audiences in multiple cricket nations but was not repeated; cricket administrators concluded the format lacked competitive stakes that a full bilateral series could provide.
Related
- 7/7 London bombings — the devastating attack in London earlier in summer 2005, months before the Ashes victory brought the city a moment of joy.
- G8 Gleneagles Summit — another major UK event of summer 2005.
- Lance Armstrong wins seventh Tour de France — other notable 2005 athletic achievements.
- Congressional hearings on steroids in baseball — a contested 2005 sporting story of a very different kind.
Sources
- Agnew, Jonathan. The Ashes 2005. BBC Books, 2005. Comprehensive account of the series.
- International Cricket Council. ICC Cricket World Cup 2003: Official Records. ICC, 2003.
- ESPN Cricinfo. The 2005 Ashes series scorecards and match reports. cricinfo.com, September 2005.
- The Times (London). “England regain the Ashes after 18 years.” 12 September 2005.