MY FIRST ASHES MEMORY: CADDICK, RAMPS, THORPE... THE CAT

"The Cat was roaring"

The Cricketer asked our writers and former players to reflect on their introduction to the world's most famous Test series.

Today it's the turn of our social media manager Owen Riley.

What is your first Ashes memory? Let us know @TheCricketerMag or email: website@thecricketer.com

England, 1997

Blair was residing in No.10, Britpop’s star was fading as Definitely Maybe, What’s the Story Morning Glory and Parklife were left in the mid-nineties, OK Computer had landed, Urban Hymns was on the horizon, and on a patch of south-London turf, England were going down to Australia once more, but going down fighting. 

Meanwhile in a sleepy corner of Suffolk, my first dalliance with watching the game, all captured via a belting mix of Benaud’s captivating tones on good old free-to-air (wasn’t that nice? Available to the hoards, at least it didn’t cost an excruciating amount to watch our nation’s cricketers stamped into the dirt). And teletext. I miss those arrestingly-lurid blues and greens of a Ceefax scorecard. Page 342.

Back to the cricket: the Ashes, The Oval, the sixth Test.

English batsmen limping along to mediocre totals like a bunch of also-rans - something that would become hauntingly familiar over the following years - but then, the tide turned, and it turned via the gravitational force of a man called Philip.

_{Highlights of the final day of the sixth Test}

Tufnell, playing in his first Test of the series, would pick up seven for 66 in Australia’s first knock, with Andy Caddick claiming the remaining three.

With England peering up at a first-innings deficit of 40, when Nasser Hussain loosely cut Shane Warne to backward point leaving the hosts 52 for four, all seemed doomed.

Step forward a couple of cool cats to blaze, block and bludgeon a ray of light onto The Oval canvas.

Ramprakash in his own backyard, got off the mark by battering Warne through the off side.

Thorpe, the gritty southpaw warrior, the headband, the Kookaburra blade, the only man to pass fifty in the Test.

McGrath was guided down to a vacant third man, Warne swept away into a Citroën advertising board, Kasprowicz driven into a Foster’s hoarding on the off side. Old-school stuff, no flashy electronic screens with a grizzled Ray Winstone shoving odds down your gullet.

In my now surely embellished childhood memories of cricket in the nineties, those England Ceefex scorecards were a sea of blue names, usually with ‘b McGrath’ or ‘b Donald’ to the right of them. Thorpe’s name always seemed to be the one left in white, sweating it out.

_{Graham Thorpe hit a pivotal 62 in the second innings}

When Kasprowicz – who took seven for 36 - finally got Thorpe, and Ramps was stumped attempting to hit Warne into the Thames to reach his half-century, England had a lead of 123.

The rest was a bit of a blur. Malcolm took the first, Elliot trapped lbw, then it was the Caddick and Tuffers show again. The pair who combined for all 10 in the first, claimed the remaining nine wickets, Caddick with the five-for.

The seamer’s caught and bowled of Ian Healy – juggling the chance like a malfunctioning robotic giraffe - and McGrath skewing Tufnell to Thorpe to seal the victory stand out.

'Tuffers' may well be remembered as a loveable folk hero rather than a blood-and-thunder sportsman, but in that Test - on what Richie described as “a very strange Oval pitch”, The Cat was roaring.

I wasn’t too clued up to the wider context, what it meant to face off against the Australians, and I was certainly unaware of the five preceding Tests. A dead rubber, the series was gone, but it was an inspiriting victory and England had won a new fan. It was my shot in the arm. I’m sure I wasn’t the only one enlightened to cricket’s beauty that day.

Words by Owen Riley | @Owen__Riley

_{Sit back and watch highlights of the Test in full} 

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