Ashes stat: Since the start of the Stokes-McCullum era in June 2022, England have an unblemished record in first Tests overseas – played five, won five. From 1981 to the end of Joe Root’s captaincy, England won 13 and lost 30 out of 61 first Tests in series away from home.
Two incompatible stats will collide in Perth on Friday – England’s heroically persistent uselessness in first Tests in Australia; and England’s Bazball-era perfection in series openers overseas. Two stats will enter. Only one will leave. Or, perhaps, both will have been slightly updated after a draw, or even a close defeat that suggests that England might have the capacity not to fail to win the Ashes at the earliest possible opportunity, as has happened in eight of the last nine tours to Australia.
The apparently tempting option of starting the series well in Australia has, by time-worn tradition, mostly been resoundingly ignored. Beyond the anti-highlight reel of Rory Burns’s leg-stump-exposing shuffle, Steve Harmison’s one-ball protest against the laws of physics, Michael Slater vaporising Phil DeFreitas’ loosener to the boundary, they have won only two first Tests in 20 away Ashes series since the Second World War.
They have trailed after the first innings in their last eight first Tests in Australia, by an average margin of 208 runs. In the last nine tours to their oldest cricketing rival, England’s combined tally in the first three Tests of series is: one win, four draws, 22 defeats.
Most of those tours contained adequate, ample or even excessive preparation. Most of the touring squads contained players who had won Test matches in Australia.
Ben Stokes’s team ticks neither of those two boxes. A perhaps more relevant box is their habit of winning first Tests of tours, which they have done twice in both Pakistan and New Zealand, and in an extraordinary victory against India in Hyderabad early last year.
For context, the Bazballian-epoch England have won as many overseas first Tests as their predecessors did in 36 series between January 1993 and October 2015, when their five victories included two against weak Bangladesh teams.
None of this proves that a sufficiency of warm-up matches was the problem that held English cricket back for decades, but it does suggest, quite strongly, that it is not, and has never been, a guaranteed solution.
The two sides’ most recent series offer little guidance. Australia’s most recent series, in the West Indies, was one of the lowest-scoring in Test history. The two teams collectively averaged 18.8 runs per wicket – the lowest figure in a series of three or more Tests since 1912. England’s 2-2 draw against India, aside from a few dramatic phases, was laden with runs, posting the sixth-highest runs per wicket ever recorded in a series in England (41.3).
If the prevailing numbers of the last five Australian Test seasons are a reliable guide – and statistics are, statistically, frequently unreliable guides to everything – the pitches in this Ashes are likely to be somewhere between the unplayable quirkiness of the Caribbean and the bowler-draining featherbeddery seen last summer in England.
Overall runs-per-wicket in Tests in Australia from 2020-21 to 2024-25 were down by just over 20% compared with the previous 20 seasons (from 35.8 to 28.4). Australia’s returns with the bat have fallen from 45.3 to 35.4 runs per wicket, their visitors’ collective figure has slumped from 28.8 to 22.9.
This series may produce a final Ashes Test with the destination of the urn still undecided
Aside from their record at the start of away series, Stokes’s team will be emboldened by the manner in which they attacked Australia’s bowlers in England in 2023.
Australia conceded 4.74 per over, having never previously gone for more than four per over in a Test series. They have not been taken for more than 3.5 per over since.
Josh Hazlewood went at 4.56 per over, having conceded under three per over in the previous 16 consecutive series in which he played. Pat Cummins began the 2023 Ashes with 221 wickets at 21.7, and an economy rate of 2.76. He took 18 at 37.7, and conceded 4.27 per over; in the final two Tests, he took three for 274 in 52 overs.
Scott Boland took two for 231 at almost five runs per over in his two Tests. Australia’s most successful bowler was the high-risk, high-reward Mitchell Starc (23 wickets at 27.0, 4.86 per over), perhaps aided by being more accustomed to facing persistent attack from the opposition batting line-up.
All have been excellent since, and have returned to close to their previous economy rates. England’s success in replicating their onslaught in more testing conditions, and Australia’s ability to withstand, disrupt and defuse it better than they did in 2023, could decide the series, or at least decide whether England can be persistently competitive for the second time in 10 Ashes tours.
Perhaps the series may even produce something not seen for more than 40 years – a final Ashes Test in Australia with the destination of the urn still undecided. The last was in 1982-83, when England, 2-1 down after a nerve-mangling three-run win at the MCG, would have retained the Ashes with a victory in Sydney. They drew, since when all fifth Ashes Tests in Australia have been, essentially, ceremonial. (Only twice since 1985 have the Ashes been on the line in a final Test in England, in 2005 and 2009.)
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