Gregory Stephen Chappell is a former cricketer who represented Australia at international level in both Tests and One-Day Internationals (ODI). The second of three brothers to play Test cricket, Chappell was the pre-eminent Australian batsman of his time who allied elegant stroke making to fierce concentration. An exceptional all round player who bowled medium pace and, at his retirement, held the world record for the most catches in Test cricket, Chappell's career straddled two eras as the game moved toward a greater level of professionalism after the WSC schism.
Dennis Keith Lillee, is Australian retired cricketer rated as the "outstanding fast bowler of his generation". Lillee formed a new ball partnership with Jeff Thomson which is recognised as one of the greatest bowling pairs of all time.
Jeffrey Robert Thomson is a former Australian cricketer. Known as "Thommo", he is one of the fastest bowlers in the history of cricket; he bowled a delivery with a speed of 160.6 km/h against the West Indies in Perth in 1975, which was the fastest recorded delivery at the time, and the fourth-fastest recorded delivery of all time.
The tour by the Australian cricket team in England in 1981 included the 51st Ashes series of Test matches between Australia and England. Despite having been 1–0 down after two Tests, England won the next three to finish 3–1 victors, thus retaining the Ashes.
Centenary Test refers to two matches of Test cricket played between the English cricket team and the Australian cricket team, the first in 1977 and the second in 1980. These matches were played to mark the 100th anniversaries of the first Test cricket matches played in Australia (1877) and in England (1880) respectively. Neither match was played for The Ashes.
Ian Charles Davis is an Australian former cricketer (batsman) who played in 15 Test matches and three One Day Internationals between 1973 and 1977. Davis retired from first-class cricket in 1984 then worked for Dunlop Slazenger until his retirement in 2010.
The Australian cricket team toured England in the 1972 season to play a five-match Test series against England for the Ashes. The series was drawn 2–2 and England retained the Ashes. This was the last drawn series until 2019. The two sides also played a three-match ODI series, which England won 2–1.
Mike Denness captained the English cricket team in Australia in 1974–75, playing as England in the 1974-75 Ashes series against the Australians and as the MCC in their other matches on the tour. They lost the Test series and the Ashes 4–1 thanks to the battering they received from the fast bowling of Dennis Lillee and Jeff Thomson, but won the One Day International and with Lillee and Thomson injured they came back to win the Sixth Test by an innings.
The Australian cricket team toured England in the 1977 season to play five Test matches for the 1977 Ashes series against England. The Australians also played three one day internationals and 19 other tour matches.
The England cricket team toured Australia during the 1982–83 season, playing a five-Test series for The Ashes and a number of tour matches against Australian domestic teams before competing in a One-Day International (ODI) series against New Zealand for the Rothmans Cup. In between those competitions, England also participated in the Benson & Hedges World Series Cricket triangular ODI series against Australia and New Zealand.
The Indian cricket team toured England in the 1974 English domestic cricket season. After matches against many of county cricket and other minor teams, in April and May, the Indian team played three Test matches and two One-day Internationals against the England cricket team. The tour was a total disaster for the Indian cricket team with England winning all five of the matches.
The West Indian cricket team toured England in 1976, spending virtually the whole of the 1976 English cricket season in England. West Indies also played one match in Ireland in July.
The 1970–71 Ashes series consisted of seven cricket Test matches, each of five days with six hours play each day and eight ball overs. It formed part of the MCC tour of Australia in 1970–71 and the matches outside the Tests were played in the name of the Marylebone Cricket Club. Ray Illingworth's England team beat Bill Lawry's Australians 2–0 and regained the Ashes, the only full Test series in Australia in which the home team failed to win a Test. "The Momentous Series of 1970–71" was pivotal in cricket history and "essentially ushered in the modern period of Test cricket". It was the first Test series to have more than five Tests and the first One Day International in cricket history was played in Melbourne; like the first test match in history it was won by Australia.
The 1970-71 Australians lost 2-0 to the touring England team in the 1970-71 Ashes series. Australia had not lost a home Test series since 1954-55, but had suffered a heavy 4-0 defeat in South Africa in 1969-70 which had affected their confidence. On paper they should have had a good team, and E.W. Swanton reckoned they were favourites to hold on to The Ashes, but Rod Marsh, Dennis Lillee and Greg Chappell had yet to mature and Bill Lawry, Garth McKenzie and John Gleeson were at the end of their careers. In more fortunate circumstances the senior players could have eased the newcomers into the team, but Ray Illingworth was a captain who exploited every weakness and they did not get the chance. Their cause was not helped by the selectors Sir Donald Bradman, Sam Loxton and Neil Harvey who chose nineteen different players in the series, nine of them debutants, and continuously chopped and changed the team which did not allow it to settle.
The 1975 Cricket World Cup Final was a One Day International cricket match played at Lord's, London on 21 June 1975 to determine the winner of the 1975 Cricket World Cup was played in Lord's, London on 21 June. It was the second time that the West Indies and Australia had met in the tournament after playing against each other in the group stage. The West Indies won the match by 17 runs to claim their first title.
The 1974–75 Ashes series consisted of six cricket Test matches, each match lasted five days with six hours of play each day and eight ball overs. It formed part of the MCC tour of Australia in 1974–75 and the matches outside the Tests were played in the name of the Marylebone Cricket Club. Ian Chappell's Australians won the series 4–1 and "brutally and unceremoniously wrenched the Ashes" from Mike Denness's England team. It was Australia's first series victory over England for ten years and the experience proved popular as 777,563 spectators came through the gates and paid nearly a million Australian dollars for the privilege. For the first time the first day of the Third Test at Melbourne was held on Boxing Day in an Ashes series, now a cricketing tradition.
The 1974–75 Australians beat the touring England team 4–1 in the 1974-75 Ashes series. Labelled the Ugly Australians for their hard-nosed cricket, sledging and hostile fast bowling they are regarded as one of the toughest teams in cricket history. Don Bradman ranked them just after his powerful teams of the late 1940s, and Tom Graveney third amongst post-war cricket teams after the 1948 Australians and 1984 West Indians. The spearhead of the team was the fast-bowling duo of Dennis Lillee, whose hatred of English batsmen was well known, and Jeff Thomson, who outraged old fashioned cricketers by saying he liked to see "blood on the wicket". Wisden reported that "never in the 98 years of Test cricket have batsmen been so grievously bruised and battered by ferocious, hostile, short-pitched balls". "Behind the batsmen, Rod Marsh and his captain Ian Chappell would vie with each other in profanity", but the predatory wicketkeeper and Australian slip cordon snapped up most chances that came their way. Their batting line up was also impressive with the opener Ian Redpath spending over 32 hours at the crease in the series, followed by Rick McCosker, Ian and Greg Chappell, Doug Walters and Ross Edwards. In the last Test of the series Lillee and Thomson were injured, the out of form England captain Mike Denness made 188 and England won by an innings.
The Marylebone Cricket Club tour of Australia in 1974-75 under the captaincy of Mike Denness was its sixteenth since it took official control of overseas tours in 1903-1904. The touring team played as England in the 1974–75 Ashes series against Australia, but as the MCC in all other games. In all there were 24 matches; 6 Test matches, 9 other First Class matches, a One Day International, which they won, another one-day game, which they lost, and 8 minor matches.
The main point of contention in the umpiring of the 1974–75 Ashes series was the intimidatory bowling of the Australian fast bowlers Dennis Lillee and Jeff Thomson. There were a few other issues, though there were the usual cases of batsmen being given out or not out despite the differing opinions of the players and umpire. At the time, umpires had no recourse to slow motion replays and had to make decisions based on what they saw in a split second, with the benefit of the doubt always going to the batsman. As a result it was not uncommon for umpires to make mistakes, which over the course of a long series tended to cancel each other out. The best an umpire could do was to make an honest judgement based on what he saw. Tom Brooks and Robin Bailhache were the umpires in all six Tests, but were junior for so important a series. Brooks having made his debut in the 1970–71 Ashes series and Bailhache in the First Test at Brisbane. Unusually for Australian umpires of the time Brooks had played First Class Cricket – he had been a lively fast-medium bowler – and as a result was more able to connect with the Test players, and was more forgiving of short-pitched deliveries which he saw as a natural part of the game. This helped England in 1970–71 when they had the fast bowlers John Snow and Bob Willis, but proved fatal for their batsmen in 1974–75.
The Australian cricket team is the most successful team in the Cricket World Cup winning the 1987, 1999, 2003, 2007 and 2015 editions. This also makes them the only team to have won the world cup in all the regions that have hosted the world cup till now. Besides, Australia had reached the finals of the 1975 and 1996 World cups losing to West Indies and Sri Lanka respectively. They also reached quarterfinals of 2011 Cricket World Cup, and were knocked out in first round three times : 1979, 1983 and 1992. Though they have won world cup record five times, they are also the only team considered as tournament favorites for every world cup, right from 1975 to present. The team has played total 85 world cup matches, the highest of any team. Its overall win–loss record is 61-21, with one tied match and two being abandoned due to rain.
