From Afghan to zooter and Gabba to Yabba – the A to Z of the Ashes
Test cricket’s blue riband series inspires laughter, tears, adulation – and the downright incredible
A is for Afghan
AKA Mark ‘Aghan, The Forgotten’ Waugh. One of the most lauded nicknames, but it did not stick once the dreamily elegant right-hander became a fixture in the side at the age of 25 in 1991, first instead of and then alongside his elder twin. Made centuries in his maiden and final Ashes innings, 10 years apart.
B is for Barnes
England’s truculent bowling genius, Sydney, who took 77 wickets in 13 Tests on three tours with his swing, seam and wickedly spun medium pace. No one has ever bent the ball to his will so masterfully on hard, true Australian pitches.
C is for Combat
The 1979-80 three-match, post-packer reconciliation series was far from cordial after England declined to put the Ashes up for grabs and bottomed out when Dennis Lillee’s attempt to market his gimmicky aluminium bat, the ‘Combat’, in a Test innings at the Waca was truncated by Mike Brearley’s protest. When Lillee threw it in anger, it flew farther than any ball had gone off its puny, hollow blade.
D is for Donnison
Not even John Arlott’s ‘Freaker’ had as much dramatic impact as pitch invader Gary Donnison at the Waca in 1982. The 19-year-old ‘English migrant’ ran on to the field when England posted 400, swiped Australia’s supreme swing bowler, Tery Alderman, across the face and provoked him into trying to make a citizen’s arrest. Alderman dislocated a shoulder and could not bowl for a year.
E is for Eddie
No Englishman averages more against Australia than the tough little Lancastrian Eddie Paynter’s 84.42 in seven Tests, and no innings captured the imagination more than his 83 at the Gabba on the Bodyline tour in 1932-33, when he was summoned from his hospital bed after an England collapse and dug in, despite a debilitating temperature and dizziness, for four hours to nudge the tourists decisively ahead. “It were nowt more than a sore throat,” he said.
F is for Fred
When England set sail on the SS Canberra for the 1962-63 tour, the captain, Ted Dexter, found the marathon runner Gordon Pirie on board and asked him to devise daily exercises for the players. They all knuckled down to it, except Fred Trueman, who favoured a deckchair after bowling more than 1,140 overs in the season.
G is for Garth
Named after a comic-strip hero because of his strapping physique, the relentlessly quick Graham Mckenzie was pivotal to Australia retaining the Ashes in 1962-63 and 1965-66, taking five-fors at Adelaide in each series.
H is for Harmison
Set the tone for 2005’s victory by roughing-up Australia’s imperious top three at Lord’s, and in contrasting fashion did the same at the Gabba in 2006-07 with an anxiety-induced first-ball wide that hooped to second slip. Now known as ‘doing a Harmy’.
I is for Ians
Ian Chappell and Ian Botham have despised one another for 40 years since a much-disputed incident at the Centenary Test in 1977, which ended with Chappell on the floor. In 2010 they fought in the Adelaide Oval car park.
J is for Joy-ride
England, 2-0 down with two Tests to play in 1990-91, responded sternly when David Gower and John Morris, who had just made 132 against Queensland, tried to inject joie de vivre into the tour by hiring two Tiger Moths from the company Joy-ride to buzz the players at the Carrara Oval. Both were fined and Morris never selected again.
K is for Kippax
Alan Kippax, the captain of New South Wales and an exquisite Golden Age throwback as a stroke-maker, became one of the first casualties of the Bodyline series, ducking out after just one Test in 1932-33 claiming that Harold Larwood was “too bloody fast for me”.
L is for Lilian Thomson
Dennis and Jeff sound a relatively benign couple, but do not be fooled: their alter-ego, the vicious and terrifying harridan Lilian Thomson, was a veritable and sadistic menace. Between them they took 58 wickets in 1974-75, breaking English bones, hearts and minds.
M is for Mcdermott
‘Billy the Kid’ Craig Mcdermott played nine home Tests against England and took six five-fors. Left the 1993 tour with a twisted bowel, so at the start of the 1994-95 series he was, according to Shane Warne, “like a greyhound after a rabbit wanting to chase the Poms out of town”. Took 32 wickets in the series.
N is for Nugget
Sir Donald Bradman will always be Australia’s most exalted player but Keith Miller is the best loved. The exuberant, charismatic and, above all, judicious all-rounder and fighter pilot scored
1,511 Ashes runs and took 87 wickets.
O is for Oldfield
Struck on the head by a Harold Larwood delivery that fractured his skull at Adelaide in 1932-33, Bert Oldfield’s injury became the defining motif of Bodyline, even though the ball was delivered to an orthodox field. He may have prevented the England team being lynched by acknowledging: “It was my fault Harold, I was trying to hook you for four.”
P is for Pickets
An away Ashes series would not be the same without the Australian vernacular: “Sundries” for extras, “pickets” for the boundary fence, “sand-shoe crusher” for yorker, “badger” for head-high bouncer and “neck and crop” for castled.
Q is for Quaife
Tiny Willie Quaife, defensive batsman, dubious leg-spinner, played all five Tests for Archie Maclaren’s side in 1901-02, the last of the private tours.
R is for Replacements
Colin Cowdrey, as rotund and jolly as Samuel Pickwick, was summoned from a Kent midwinter to take on Lillee and Thomson at 41 in 1974. Twenty years later, Gus Fraser and Chris Lewis joined the squad to bowl England to victory in Adelaide.
S is for Sardine
Home crowds took a dislike to Douglas Jardine in 1928-29 (because it saved time) and barracked him as “f------ Sardine”. “Australians don’t really like you,” said his teammate Patsy Hendren. “The feeling is f------ mutual,” said Jardine.
T is for Typhoon
Frank Tyson, the fastest bowler Richie Benaud ever saw, took 25 wickets in the victories at the SCG, MCG and Adelaide in 1954-55 that turned the series from 1-0 down to 3-1 up.
U is for Under the Southern Cross
Australia’s victory ‘song’, first led by Rod Marsh at the Gabba in 1974. Nathan Lyon now holds the honour of being the toaster, leading what is, in truth, more of a chant: ‘Under the Southern Cross I stand/ A sprig of wattle in my hand/ A native of my native land/ Australia you f------ beauty.’
V is for Vulture Street End
Phil Defreitas’s opening delivery from the Stanley
Street End at the Gabba in 1994, a filthy long-hop smashed for four by Michael Slater, set the tone for the series. But Martin Mccague from the Vulture Street End was even worse. “He simply fed Slater, like an indulgent zookeeper doling out fish to a friendly seal,” wrote Christopher Martinjenkins in the Telegraph.
W is for Wangaratta to Wagga Wagga
A road journey between state matches on which Brian Statham and Peter Loader were injured in a car accident that ruled them out of the last Test in 1958-59.
X is for Xavier
Along with Victor Trumper and Archie Jackson, Greg Chappell forms the holy trinity of great Australian batting stylists, but as a coach and selector he has rather more in common with The Thick of It’s goofily sinister Stewart Pearson, and never more so than when picking spinners Xavier Doherty and Michael Beer ahead of Nathan Hauritz for the 2010-11 Ashes. Doherty took three wickets at an average of 102 in the series.
Y is for Yabba
Stephen Harold Gascoigne, known as Yabba, was a regular on The Hill at the SCG who was celebrated as a great wit for the timing and content of his heckling.
Z is for Zooter
Once his shoulder gave out, Shane Warne lost his googly but it did not stop him becoming a flared trouser-wearing huckster before every series to try to con us, claiming he had invented a mystery delivery. Most famous of all was the ‘zooter’.