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Classic Ashes Series

Classic Ashes Series
Although Australia were victorious in the Border-Gavasker Trophy, winning the series 3-1, India’s premier fast-bowler Jasprit Bumrah, was an unstoppable force against Australia this summer.
The way that Bumrah dominated our batsmen, reminded me how Englands John Snow did a similar dismantling operation for his country on the infamous Ashes tour of 1970-71.
As a wide eyed eleven-year-old, I was able to watch this series on television, as this was the first time our national broadcaster the ABC, had provided ball by ball coverage of Test cricket, albeit in ghostly, grainy black and white, filmed with a solitary camera behind the bowler from only one end.
John Snow, who had reinvented his action in his mid-twenties, became a bowler of genuine speed and with his habit of targeting batsmen with short deliveries, he found the pace and bounce of Australian pitches much to his liking.
Snow’s aggressive and hostile bowling, which had all the Australian batsmen ducking and weaving, was a decisive factor in England winning back the Ashes by a 2-0 margin.
The Sussex fast-bowler, finished with 31 wickets at 22.83, the best return by an England bowler in Australia, since Harold Larwood’s 33 wickets at 19.51 in the 1932-33 Bodyline series.
By winning that series, Ray Illingworth became the only English captain, to win the Ashes in Australia without losing a match, in a series of five Tests or more. Also, in another rare occurrence, England did not receive one single LBW decision from the Australian umpires, during the six completed Tests matches.
Australian opener Keith Stackpole, through his powerful stroke play, was the only batsman to weather the snowstorm. If the first ball of a Test match was there to be hit, then Stackpole’s solid frame would launch into it.
In the series, Stackpole accumulated 627 runs at 52.25 with a top score of 207, however, that 207 scored in the first Test at the Gabba, was clouded in controversy when he was not given runout on 18, by Australian umpire Lou Rowan.
Stackpole, who was a master of the hook and cut shots, was the first aggressive opener I saw and he set the blueprint for Australian players like Michael Slater, Matthew Hayden and David Warner to follow.
In a controversial move by selectors, 36-year-old Victorian opener Ken Eastwood, on the back of 737 runs in the Sheffield Shield at an average of 122.83, was selected to replace the incumbent Australian captain Bill Lawry, for the historic seventh and final Test at Sydney.
Lawry was reportedly told of his sacking from the captaincy and Test side by a radio broadcast, as the Australian selectors headed by Sir Donald Bradman, apparently couldn’t get in touch with him.
In this his one and only Test for Australia, Eastwood scored just 5 and 0, however, in an error by officials he has two baggy green caps. In an interview many years later Eastwood stated, “They gave me two caps to try on for size, and nobody asked for the other one back, so it stayed in my bag.”
Famously the third Test of this series at Melbourne was washed out without a ball being bowled, resulting in the hasty arrangement of the first One Day International (ODI) on the scheduled fifth day, January 5, 1971.
The 40 eight ball over a side match attracted 46,000 spectators through the MCG gates to watch Australia defeat England comfortably by five wickets on the same ground they had won the first Test match in 1877.
With England having to win the 1970-71 series to take possession of the Ashes, the final result was in doubt till the last session of the seventh Test.
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