Toughest Tour

The Ashes away series is without doubt the toughest test of an English cricketers career. From the ageing team of the first post-war tour, landing at Fremantle after three weeks at sea in a Ministry of War transport carrier, to the whitewash of 2006-7, when England fell like rabbits caught in Shane Warnes headlights, Australian soil has played host to some of English crickets most gruelling nadirs but also some of its most glorious and infamous highs. In this unique oral history, drawn from dozens of original interviews with the surviving tourists, the Telegraphs Huw Turbervill chronicles sixty years of England down under, recreating the greatest moments of every tour since the end of the Second World War through the words of the players who witnessed them and who made them happen. Whether reliving, with Alec Bedser, Englands dismay at Don Bradmans shock reprieve on 28 in the first Test at Brisbane in 1946 (he went on to 187), wincing with Frank Typhoon Tyson as he describes the moment he was bowled to the ground, unconscious, at the second Test in Sydney in 1954 only to exact a furious and victorious revenge, or rejoicing with John Emburey and Chris Broad as England confound their critics to prove they really can bat, bowl and field, during the first Test upset of 1986, The Toughest Tour is a constantly entertaining, often heartfelt and sometimes shamelessly partisan account of six decades and sixteen tours of crickets most compelling rivalry.