The Ashes is a Test cricket series played between England and Australia. The term originated in a satirical obituary published in a British newspaper, The Sporting Times, immediately after Australia's 1882 victory at The Oval, its first Test win on English soil. The obituary stated that English cricket had died, and "the body will be cremated and the ashes taken to Australia". The mythical ashes immediately became associated with the 1882–83 series played in Australia, before which the English captain Ivo Bligh had vowed to "regain those ashes". The English media therefore dubbed the tour the quest to regain the Ashes.
Lleyton Glynn Hewitt is an Australian professional tennis player and former world No. 1. He is the most recent Australian to win a men's singles Grand Slam title.
Stephen Rodger Waugh is an Australian former international cricketer and twin brother of cricketer Mark Waugh. A right-handed batsman, he was also a medium-pace bowler. As Australian captain from 1997 to 2004, he led Australia to fifteen of their record sixteen consecutive Test wins, and to victory in the 1999 Cricket World Cup. Waugh is considered the most successful Test captain in history with 41 victories and a winning ratio of 72%.
Roger Federer is a Swiss professional tennis player. He has been ranked world No. 1 by the Association of Tennis Professionals (ATP) for 310 weeks, including a record 237 consecutive weeks, and has finished as the year-end No. 1 five times. He has won 103 ATP singles titles, the second most of all time after Jimmy Connors, including 20 Grand Slam titles, a record eight men's singles Wimbledon titles, and a record six year-end championships.
Harry Kewell is an Australian football coach and former player. He was most recently the head coach of Barnet. Kewell played for Leeds United, Liverpool, Galatasaray, Melbourne Victory, Al-Gharafa and Melbourne Heart. While at Leeds he was named the PFA Young Player of the Year in 2000. Internationally he has received 58 caps, and scored 17 goals, while playing for the Australian national team. A left winger also capable of playing as an attacking midfielder or second striker, he is often regarded within the media as "Australia's finest football export", despite his career being blighted with injury. In 2012, Kewell was named Australia's greatest footballer in a vote by Australian fans, players and media.
The Australia men's national cricket team represents Australia in men's international cricket. As the joint oldest team in Test cricket history, playing in the first ever Test match in 1877, the team also plays One-Day International (ODI) and Twenty20 International (T20I) cricket, participating in both the first ODI, against England in the 1970–71 season and the first T20I, against New Zealand in the 2004–05 season, winning both games. The team draws its players from teams playing in the Australian domestic competitions – the Sheffield Shield, the Australian domestic limited-overs cricket tournament and the Big Bash League.
The India men's national cricket team, also known as Team India or the Men in Blue, represents India in men's international cricket. It is governed by the Board of Control for Cricket in India (BCCI), and is a Full Member of the International Cricket Council (ICC) with Test, One Day International (ODI) and Twenty20 International (T20I) status.
Ricky Thomas Ponting is an Australian cricket coach, commentator, and former cricketer. Ponting was captain of the Australian national team during its "golden era", between 2004 and 2011 in Test cricket and 2002 and 2011 in One Day Internationals (ODIs) and is the most successful captain in international cricket history, with 220 victories in 324 matches with a winning rate of 67.91%. He is widely considered to be one of the best batsmen of the modern era and in December 2006 reached the highest rating achieved by a Test batsman for 50 years, although this was surpassed by Steve Smith in December 2017. He stands second in the list of cricketers by number of international centuries scored behind Sachin Tendulkar.
The Australia national rugby union team, nicknamed the Wallabies, is the representative national team in the sport of rugby union for the nation of Australia. The team first played at Sydney in 1899, winning their first test match against the touring British Isles team.
Sir Andrew Barron Murray is a British professional tennis player from Scotland. He was ranked world No. 1 by the Association of Tennis Professionals (ATP) for 41 weeks, and finished as the year-end No. 1 in 2016. He has won three Grand Slam singles titles, two at Wimbledon and one at the US Open (2012), and has reached eleven major finals. Murray was ranked in the top 10 for all but one month from July 2008 through October 2017, and finished no lower than No. 4 in eight of the nine year-end rankings during that span. Murray has won 46 ATP singles titles, including 14 ATP Masters 1000 events.
Adam Derek Scott is an Australian professional golfer who plays mainly on the PGA Tour. He was the World No. 1 ranked golfer, from mid-May to August 2014. He has won 31 professional tournaments around the world, on many of golf's major tours.
Rafael Nadal Parera is a Spanish professional tennis player. He is ranked world No. 4 in singles by the Association of Tennis Professionals (ATP); he has been ranked world No. 1 for 209 weeks and finished as the year-end No. 1 five times. Nadal has won 21 Grand Slam men's singles titles, the most in history, including a record 13 French Open titles. He has won 91 ATP singles titles, with 62 of these on clay. Nadal's 81 consecutive wins on clay is the longest single-surface win streak in the Open Era.
Steven Peter Devereux Smith is an Australian international cricketer and the current vice-captain of the Australia national cricket team in Tests. He was the former captain of the Australian national team. Smith has drawn comparisons to Donald Bradman, widely acknowledged as the greatest batsman of all time, due to his distinctively high Test batting average.
Virat Kohli is an Indian international cricketer and former captain of the India national cricket team. He plays for Delhi in domestic cricket and Royal Challengers Bangalore in the Indian Premier League as a right-handed batsman. He is often considered one of the best batsmen of his era and some critics believe him to be one of the best limited-overs batsmen in history. Between 2013 and 2022, he captained the India cricket team in more than 200 matches across all three formats. With 40 wins out of 68 test matches, Kohli is the most successful test captain in Indian cricket history.
Novak Djokovic is a Serbian professional tennis player. He is currently ranked world No. 2 as of 28 February 2022. He was ranked world No. 1 by the Association of Tennis Professionals (ATP) for a record total 361 weeks, and has finished as the year-end No. 1 a record seven times. He has won 20 Grand Slam men's singles titles, including a record nine Australian Open titles. Overall, he has won 86 ATP singles titles, including a record 37 Masters events. Djokovic is the only man to complete a non-calendar year Grand Slam and the first man in the Open Era to achieve a double career Grand Slam. He is also the only player to complete the career Golden Masters on the ATP Tour, which he has done twice.
Daniel Joseph Ricciardo is an Italian-Australian racing driver who is currently competing in Formula One, under the Australian flag, for McLaren. He made his debut at the 2011 British Grand Prix with the HRT team as part of a deal with Red Bull Racing, for whom he was test driving under its sister team Scuderia Toro Rosso. Ricciardo's driver number is 3. He has achieved 8 Grand Prix victories in Formula One.
Shane Keith Warne was an Australian cricketer. A right-arm leg spinner, he is widely considered as one of the greatest bowlers in cricket history, and in 2000 he was selected by a panel of cricket experts as one of five Wisden Cricketers of the Century, the only specialist bowler and the only one still playing at the time.
Joseph Edward Root, is an English cricketer who currently captains the England Test team and plays for the England One Day International (ODI) team. He also represents Yorkshire in English domestic cricket, and in 2018-19 played for Sydney Thunder in the Australian Twenty20 Big Bash League.
Nicholas Hilmy Kyrgios is an Australian professional tennis player. In singles, he has a career high ATP singles ranking of world No. 13, achieved on 24 October 2016. Kyrgios has won six ATP titles and has reached nine ATP finals, including the 2017 Cincinnati Masters where he lost in the final to Grigor Dimitrov. In doubles, he has a career-high ranking of world No. 38, achieved on 11 February 2022 after winning a Major doubles title at the 2022 Australian Open, partnering with Thanasi Kokkinakis.
Benjamin David Simmons is an Australian professional basketball player for the Brooklyn Nets of the National Basketball Association (NBA). He played college basketball for one season with the Louisiana State University (LSU) Tigers, after which he was named a consensus first-team All-American and the USBWA National Freshman of the Year. Simmons was selected with the first overall pick in the 2016 NBA draft by the Philadelphia 76ers. After sitting out a year due to an injured right foot, he was named the NBA Rookie of the Year in 2018 and was selected three times to the NBA All-Star Game. As the result of a holdout from the 76ers following the 2020–21 season, Simmons is the most-fined player in NBA history.
