Tour of England 2005                 Captain: Ricky Ponting

Australia’s 78th Test tour

(June - September 2005)

35th Test-playing tour of England by the Australians        

  (previous tour in 2001)

Described at the time by excited commentators as the greatest Test series of all time, the Ashes Tests of 2005 were certainly among the best to watch and apparently to play in.

England lost so heavily in the first Test match at Lord's that it looked inevitable that this would be a re-run of 1989, 1993, 1997 and 2001 with Australia winning the Test series at a canter. England came back to win by very narrow margins at Edgbaston and Trent Bridge before just holding on for a draw at The Oval.

Ponting as captain had to take responsibility for losing The Ashes, including making the wrong decision to bat at Edgbaston, but he was let down by his fast bowlers when McGrath was unavailable, and some of the ageing leading players - Hayden, Martyn and Gilchrist - underperformed.  Warne with 40 wickets at a cost of less than 20 runs each had a great series but sometimes conveyed that he was not entirely in agreement with tactics on the field. Though Warne was the press's preference for the captaincy, Ponting held on and regained the Ashes in 2006-07.

Other Australian Tours

Previous tour

To New Zealand 2004-05

Next tour

To South Africa 2005-06

Next tour of England

2009

Members of the Test tour party (16  +  1)

Opening batsmen  Matthew Hayden, Justin Langer

Middle-order batsmen:  Damien Martyn, Ricky Ponting, Simon Katich, Michael Clarke, Brad Hodge.

Wicket-keepers:Adam Gilchrist, Brad Haddin

All-rounder:  Shane Watson

Spin bowlers:Shane WarneStuart MacGill

Fast bowlers:Jason Gillespie,  Glenn McGrath. Brett Lee, Michael Kasprowicz, Shaun Tait (reinforced by  Stuart Clark).

State representation

   Pura Cup teams

NSW   New South Wales (6)

Qld  Queensland (2)

SA   South Australia (2)

Tas   Tasmania (1)

Vic   Victoria  (2)

WA  Western Australia (3)

Average age of  team at time of first Test match

    (21 July 2005) : 

           31 yrs   2 months

ODI  Part of the squad for NatWest Challenge and NatWest Series

Test Appearances made before the tour

Warne 123, McGrath 109, Langer 88, Ponting 88, Gilchrist 68, Hayden 67, Gillespie 66, Martyn 56, Lee 37, Kasprowicz 33, MacGill 33, Katich 16, Clarke 12, Haddin 0, Hodge 0, Tait 0.

Tour Officials

Selectors

Trevor Hohns (Queensland),  David Boon (Tasmania), Allan Border (Queensland), Andrew Hilditch (South Australia)

Border left the panel of selectors before the 2005 Ashes began to focus on his media commitments, and Merv Hughes (Victoria) took his place on the panel.

Selection

Unavailable:  None

Tour Party Announced :  5 April 2005.

Not selected :  Nathan Bracken,  Darren Lehmann.

Time between selection and departure from Australia

       60 days

(5 April - 4 June)

Travel

Brisbane    Q   London     

A pre-tour camp was held in Brisbane in the final week of May.  The team flew out of Brisbane Airport on Saturday 4 June to Singapore and London, landing at Heathrow Airport at 6 am on 5 June 2005.

On 6 June the team went by Eurostar train to Lille, to visit the battlefields of northern France where Ponting laid a wreath for 11,000 fallen Australian soldiers.

Langer arrived in England on 7 July.

Time spent in England

   100 days

(5 June  -  13 September)

On-tour selection panel

Ricky Ponting and John Buchanan had input but were not selectors on tour.   David Boon (1st and 2nd Tests), Merv Hughes (3rd Test) and Trevor Hohns (last two Tests) took responsibility as on-tour selector.

Reinforcements

Stuart Clark  was added to the squad on 9 August because of Glenn McGrath's right ankle injury and Brett Lee being hospitalised in Birmingham with an infected knee.

Fixtures/Results

† not first-class

§  one-day international

Time spent in England before First Test:     

  46 days

(5 June - 21 July)

Test appearances on tour

5 -   Clarke,  Gilchrist,  Hayden,  Katich,  Langer,  Lee,  Martyn,  Ponting,  Warne.

4 - 

3 -   Gillespie,  McGrath

2 -   Kasprovicz, Tait.

1 -

0 -   Haddin, Hodge, MacGill.

Match appearances

T  Test match

o  one-day international 

x other match 

⊕ T/20 international

∙  played for opposition

 W won  L lost  D drawn   N no result   A abandoned   u unknown result

Australia’s six previous Test tour results:

in New Zealand 2005 (3 Tests)

 - won 2-0

in India 2004-05 (4 Tests)

  - won 2-1

in Sri Lanka 2003-04 (3 Tests)

- won 3-0

in West Indies 2003 (4 Tests)

 - won 3-1

in UAE v Pakistan 2002 (3 Tests)

 - won 3-0

in South Africa 2001-02 (3 Tests)

 - won 2-1

Highlights

•  In the Lord's Test  Glenn McGrath's spell of 5 for 2 in 31 balls determined the match. His match figues were 5-53 and 4-29.

•  Ricky Ponting (156) batted  for 7 hours on a wearing pitch at Old Trafford to save the third Test.

•   Shane Warne took wickets consistently throughout the series and ended with 40 wickets, including 12 taken at The Oval.

•   Langer (105) and Hayden (138) made an opening partnership of 185 at The Oval but to no avail.

Tour Summary

Return to Australia

London, Heathrow   Q   Sydney

Haddin, Hodge and Clark, who were not required for the final Test at The Oval, joined the Australia A team in Pakistan.  Shane Warne and Simon Katich remained in England, playing county cricket for Hampshire.

On 13 September members of the Australian team took the Qantas flight from Heathrow arriving back at Sydney Airport on 14 Sept 2005.  While making a stopover in Singapore on the way back to Australia, the team saw TV footage of England's  triumphant open-top bus tour of London.

Ricky Ponting landed at Sydney along with Glenn McGrath, Brett Lee, Michael Clarke and Stuart MacGill. Gillespie, Gilchrist, Langer, Tait, Kasprowicz and Buchanan all left the flight at Singapore, and flew on to their state airports.

Time away from Australia

   102 days  

(4 June -  14 September)

Finances

Accounts of the tour

"Ashes 2005: The Full Story of the Test Series"  Gideon Haigh

"Battle for "The Ashes"  David Frith

"Ashes Fever"  Ian Stafford  (Mainstream Publishing, 2005)

"Victory! The Battle for the Ashes 2005 Book"   Sam Pilger

"Ashes Diary 2005"  Ricky Ponting and Brian Murgatroyd

"(The Definitive Guide to) The Ashes 2005"  Wisden Cricketer

"Winning the Ashes"  Ralph Dellor and Stephen Lamb

"The Unforgettable Tests"  Jonathan Rice

"Ashes Victory"  The England Cricket Team

"Calling the Shots"  Michael Vaughan

"Is it Cowardly to Pray for Rain?"  Mike Adamson - online Ashes chronicle (Abacus, 2005)

"England's Ashes : The Story of the Greatest Test Series of All Time"  - Daily Telegraph

       (contributions by Derek Pringle, Simon Briggs, Martin Johnson and Simon Hughes)

"The Ashes in Focus"  Patrick Eagar (A & C Black 2005)

"The Ashes: The Greatest Series"  [DVD boxed set]

Postscript

Jamie Siddons sued Cricket Australia because he injured his shoulder throwing balls when assistant coach in the Ashes series.  He sought compensation in the Victoria courts for damage to his right shoulder.

In November 2005 Cricket Australia replaced Jock Campbell with the former fitness advisor to Bangladesh Cricket Board, Justin Cordy, as the strength and conditioning coach of the Australian cricket team.  Troy Cooley swopped from being England’s bowling coach to being Australia’s.  Jonathan Rose left Cricket Australia immediately after the 2005 Brisbane Test for National Australia Bank

Australia recovered to win all of its next four Test series in  2005-06: 3-0 against West Indies and 2-0 against South Africa at home, and then 3-0 against South Africa and 2-0 against Bangladesh on tour.

Damien Martyn joined Stuart MacGill and Shane Warne in criticising the preparations made by John Buchanan for the tour