Action Replay
Richard Edwards recalls the first Test at Edgbaston in 1997
It’s hilarious if you watch it on YouTube,” says Mark Ealham, laughing. “You’ve got Nasser (Hussain) waving his bat at the crowd and charging around the square – then you’ve got me chasing him trying to shake his hand. I’ve never let him forget it.”
It’s little wonder that the future England skipper was getting carried away. He had, after all, become the first English batsman since David Gower in 1985 to score an Ashes double century. He had also helped to set up an unimaginably positive start to the summer against an Australian side that had been expected to whoop Mike Atherton’s men out of sight.
Hussain’s batting heroics followed a bowling display that, at times, defied belief. A raucous Edgbaston crowd barely had time to put a glass to their lips, so often were they raising their hands in celebration at the fall of yet another Australian wicket on an opening morning that has gone down in Ashes folklore.
For England, it was the stuff of dreams. For the Aussies, it was a nightmare throwback to the mid-Eighties when their hated foe routinely maintained the whip hand.
“There was a really positive feeling at that time, even talk of a new era of success,” says Ealham. “We had beaten the Aussies 3-0 in the one-day series before the Tests and we’d seen players like Ben Hollioake coming through and doing incredible things. Everyone had a massive smile on their face.”
None was broader than those of the England supporters who had poured into Edgbaston on a bright June morning that would begin with the Aussies winning the toss and would end with them shell-shocked in their dressing room.
From the moment a youthful Darren Gough – resplendent in white war paint – fizzed one through the defences of Mark Taylor with the opening ball of the series, the Aussies appeared a shadow of the side that had thrashed England with ease since 1989.
Taylor, the Aussie captain, was all at sea, desperately grappling with a game that had seen him score just 360 runs in his previous 20 Test innings. At the other end, Matthew Elliott appeared to have little or no idea of his bearings in unfamiliar surroundings.
Neither of the left-handers hung around, Gough bowling Elliott with a beauty and then Devon Malcolm tempting Taylor to slash at a wide one, sending the ball spearing into the hands of debutant Mark Butcher in the slips.
It was a poor start, but one that was about to get a whole lot worse.
“I was fielding at gully and itching to get a bowl,” says Ealham. “But the longer the morning went on, the more unbelievable things got. Edgbaston is always the nosiest crowd in the country and that morning the volume was incredible. There was an electricity all around the ground.”
Wickets didn’t so much fall as cascade as the tourists failed to cope with the movement and pace of Gough, Malcolm and Andy Caddick. It was even too much for the usually implacable Mark Waugh, who was cleaned up by Gough, and also Greg Blewett, bowled off a no-ball before helplessly steering a drive straight to third slip the next ball.
Caddick then got in on the act, taking two wickets in two balls to near-identical deliveries; Steve Waugh and Ian Healy were the recipients to leave the Aussies red-faced at 48-6. There was no talk of head-butts, no gesticulating by batsmen towards the slips and no continual use of the referral system. This was good old-fashioned Test cricket and England were rolling back the years to a time that most cricket fans in this country had long since forgotten.
The Aussies eventually crawled to 118 thanks almost exclusively to a fighting 47 from Shane Warne. The fact he was the victim of a Malcolm boundary catch to end the innings, which handed Caddick his fifth wicket, emphasised the kind of morning that England had enjoyed.
“I’m not sure any of us really believed what we had just seen,” says Ealham. “We had basically just skittled the best team in the world in a session.”
Rarely had lunchtime refreshment tasted so good. England were teetering at 50-3 when Alec Stewart was dismissed midway through the afternoon, but Hussain and Graham Thorpe didn’t so much steal the initiative as completely wrestle it from Australian hands.
By the time Thorpe was out for 138, another 288 runs had been added and the Aussies were staring defeat – even humiliation – squarely between the eyes. But this being England and this being the Nineties meant that the route to victory wasn’t quite as serene as Atherton would have liked.
A fifty from Elliott and twin centuries from a relieved Taylor and Blewett saw to that, but just as things began to look a little sticky, Ealham entered the fray.
“I think Athers was beginning to get to the end of his tether,” he says. “The Aussies were 450-odd for six and about 100 ahead, so there was a chance of things getting a bit messy. I ended up getting Healy caught in the gully (by the captain) and then I knocked over Warne and (Michael) Kasprowicz pretty quickly as well.”
Ealham finished with figures of 3-60, to go with his first innings 53 not out, to round off a successful first Ashes Test.
All that was left was for England to chase the small matter of 119 runs that stood between them and a shock Ashes lead.
In the past it would have been the kind of score to give them the jitters, but with the Aussies under-cooked and England simmering with attacking intent, they made it look like a Sunday jaunt to a Birmingham pub for a roast dinner and a glass of red.
It took Atherton and Stewart just 21 overs to reach their target, brushing off the dismissal of Butcher for 14, to take a priceless 1-0 lead in the series. What’s more, they had beaten the Aussies without the need of a fifth day. In Ashes terms it was a veritable mauling and a mood of optimism pervaded as England’s long-suffering fans frolicked on the outfield after the post-match ceremonies.
With a general election having swept New Labour into Downing Street the previous month, there appeared to be a sense of renewal coursing through the veins of the country.
It would take the England side far less time to unravel than Tony Blair’s party, however, with Glenn McGrath finding his range at Lord’s in the second Test – bowling England out for their lowest total at Lord’s since 1888 – and then inspiring his side to a scintillating comeback which started at Old Trafford and ended in the fifth Test at Trent Bridge.
An England win in the sixth match of the series book-ended the Ashes summer. By that time, though, the game was up. And cricket’s most precious urn was staying in familiar hands.
Taylor, the Aussie captain, was all at sea, grappling with a game that had seen him score 360 runs in his previous 20 Test innings