M.G. Hughes c Small b Edmonds 8

Tony T offers a rueful cricket memory:

Prior to the 1986-87 Ashes series Martin Johnson, or maybe it was Joe the Cameraman, wrote that the English team 'had only three things wrong with them - can't bat, can't bowl, can't field'. Ian Botham recently recalled that series, stating prior to his knighthood that England's win back then was one of his great cricket memories, especially as they'd been written off. Well, it may be a great memory for Sir Loin, but not so for me. The 86-87 series is scorched into my synapses. Not because we lost a heartbreaker, like to the West Indies in 1993, but because we were so bloody dreadful. Johnson's criticisms may well have been right, too; England may well have been rubbish. It's just that Australia couldn't bat, couldn't bowl, couldn't field - only worse. No 'may wells' about it. Of particular aggravation was the sight of our bowlers, McDermott, Reid, Hughes, etc continually putting the ball on Chris Broad's pads to allow the willow-wielding Gloucestershirian round-the-other-wayer - sorry, talking Roebuck there - to notch up three casual centuries before being found out by better bowlers and ending up as a stump-smashing hack. Not that I'm bitter.

For a lout, Merv Hughes was surprisingly dainty, and it was he who provided the fitting coup de graceless: a flappy swipe to a ball from Phil Edmonds that lobbed into Gladstone Small's hands at deep backward square. But almost before the catch was taken, I'd had enough. It was without any prodding whatsoever that I switched from Straya's teeth-gnashing fiasco at the MCG to one of Straya's greatest triumphs, as Pat Cash led our Davis Cup team to a 3-2 victory at Kooyong over Sweden.

What they said at the time:

England won the match in two and a half days, thus taking an invincible two-nil lead in a best of five series, and retaining the Ashes. - Frances Edmonds, Cricket XXXX Cricket

On his [Geoff Marsh's] departure Australia lost their will to battle on. The last six wickets fell for 41 in 80 minutes to the spin of Emburey and Edmonds; just 40 minutes after tea the game was over. - Wisden 1988

The rest was an almost embarrassingly unequal 'struggle' between England's two merciless spinners and a feeble and demoralized Australian middle and lower order. The folly of leaving out Ritchie was all too evident. And to think that England had seriously contemplated leaving Edmonds out. - Christopher Martin-Jenkins, Grand Slam

From this point onwards Australian spectators have nothing to get excited about except a view of Pat Cash winning the vital Davis Cup rubber against Sweden on the big television screen. - Peter West, Clean Sweep

Hughes heaved two fours off Edmonds, but a third attempt finished in the hands of Small, at deep square who threw the ball aloft in triumph, and English joy was unconfined. - Daily Telegraph, The Battle for the Ashes '87

[T]he rest caved in with the last seven wickets going down for the addition of 41 runs, the last five falling for 25 runs in 10.4 overs after tea. The Ashes had been regained. [He means retained - NG] - Mike Gatting, Triumph in Australia

England has won the Ashes. Australia has won the Davis Cup. At 4.39 this afternoon, big Merv Hughes, of the big bristling moustache, swept Edmonds to Small at deep square leg, whither he had been moved two balls earlier. Small took the catch and then hurled the ball into the air, forgetting it in his eruption of joy to keep as a memento. - Peter Roebuck, Ashes to Ashes

Good to remember that not far ahead lay 1989 - year of the fall of the Berlin Wall and of the beginning of The Australian Supremacy.

[For links to the other posts in this series, see here.]