How England can win the Ashes in Australia

They have found it very difficult to do in almost 150 years, but there are lessons to be learned from history.

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57. It’s a magical Ashes number. That’s the amount of times Australia have travelled to England and won a Test match. It’s also the amount of times England have travelled to Australia and won a Test match. You might think, wait a minute, why do we always hear all this about England absolutely getting smashed by Australia if they’ve both won 57 matches? The issue is not how many matches they’ve won. The issue is how many matches they’ve lost.

Australia have won 57 games and they have lost 57 games. That’s a really good record away from home, especially considering England have been a fairly good side over the vast majority of Test cricket. Yes, they’ve had some periods where they haven’t been, but all things considered, that’s pretty remarkable.

England on the other hand, have lost almost a hundred games.

So you have a situation where Australia have won half of their ‘result’ away games and England have won more just a bit more than a third of their ‘result’ away games.

There’s a big difference here. But I’m not even sure this is the best way of showing it, because you can actually see the difference per wicket. If you look at the differentials for both teams per wicket, it’s really, really fascinating.

Australia average around 30 when they travel to England, which is pretty good in a place that generally has a low average. And England are well below that. Australia are a much better batting team in England than England are in Australia. There’s no doubt about that.

The bowling equivalent shows the same thing.

These are a good place to start, but they don’t actually show you everything. I wanted to condense it all into one stat that made a bit more sense.