1953 And All That

The 2009 Ashes has matched the 2005 series for national fervour, but fallen understandably short in terms of quality and sheer drama. At last people are starting to view the events of four years ago as once-in-a-generation stuff.

This series is comparable to the 1-0 victory England achieved in 1953 - ending a more than twenty year wait for the urn. This was a summer drama, but of the bad weather and draws too. Sound familiar?

In truth, England stumbled through, peaking at just the right time to tilt the scoreline in their favour. The second Test (at Lord's) had a definite Cardiff feeling about it - with Bill Bowes writing in The Cricketer that the final day defence of the England batsmen "brought a draw as glorious as any victory". England started that final day at 20-3, and finished on 282-7 with Bowes suggesting that "perhaps in the very impossibility of [a win] there was a mental ease for the batsmen."

More exceptional survival cricket from England in the fourth Test secured another draw - the fourth in a row. Keith Miller starred again for the tourists. I wish I'd seen him play - he strikes me as being like KP in character, though more appreciated.

And so to the Oval, where England won by eight wickets to take the series 1-0. Not that Bowes got carried away. He wrote the next month in The Cricketer that "satisfaction in the result must not blind us to the need to build strongly."

The same will certainly be true this time round if England are to regain the Ashes once more.