1990–91 Ashes series

1990-91 Ashes Series
Part of the English cricket team in Australia in 1990-91
Date 23 November 1990 - 5 February 1991 Location Australia Result Australia won the 5-Test series 3-0 Player of the series Bruce Reid
Teams
Australia	England
Captains
Allan Border	Allan Lamb (stand-in) Graham Gooch
Most runs
David Boon (530) Greg Matthews (353) Geoff Marsh (314)	Graham Gooch (426) David Gower (407) Mike Atherton (279)
Most wickets
Bruce Reid (27) Craig McDermott (18) Terry Alderman (16)	Devon Malcolm (16) Angus Fraser (11) Phil DeFreitas (10)

The England cricket team toured Australia in the 1990–91 season to play a five-match Test series against Australia for The Ashes. The Australians were the holders, having reclaimed the Ashes in England during the 1989 Ashes series, however the 1986-87 Ashes series, which was the previous series in Australia had been won by England. The English tourists were confident their home series loss in 1989 had been a blemish and that they were more than capable of reclaiming the Ashes 'down under'. The tourists were seemingly well prepared. During their home summer they had 1-0 victories in 3-test series against both India and New Zealand, and had played well in their warm-up matches.

However the Australians, led by the authoritative Allan Border were in a ruthless mood. They had home series victories against Sri Lanka and Pakistan, but had lost a one-off test to New Zealand since the 1989 Ashes series victory, and Border and his men were determined to defend the trophy. The Australians came out aggressively from the start, and combined with moments of bad-luck for the tourists, proved too much pressure for the England side to handle. The five test series was won 3-0 by Australia.

Test matches

First Test (23–25 November)

23–25 November 1990 Scorecard	England 194 (78 overs)	v	Australia 152 (63 overs)	Australia won by 10 wickets The Gabba, Brisbane Umpires: AR Crafter (Aus) and PJ McConnell (Aus) Player of the match: TM Alderman (Aus)
	DI Gower 61 (121) BA Reid 4/53 [18]		GRJ Matthews 35 (93) CC Lewis 3/29 [9]
	114 (53.1 overs)		157/0 (46 overs)
	DI Gower 27 (44) TM Alderman 6/47 [22]		GR Marsh 72 (154)

• Australia lead the five test series 1-0.

Second Test (26–30 December)

26–30 December 1990 Scorecard	England 352 (131.4 overs)	v	Australia 306 (112.5 overs)	Australia won by 8 wickets Melbourne Cricket Ground, Melbourne Umpires: AR Crafter (Aus) and PJ McConnell (Aus) Player of the match: BA Reid (Aus)
	DI Gower 100 (170) BA Reid 6/97 [39]		AR Border 62 (164) ARC Fraser 6/82 [39]
	150 (73 overs)		197/2 (86 overs)
	GA Gooch 58 (116) BA Reid 7/51 [22]		DC Boon 94* (234) ARC Fraser 1/33 [20]

• Australia lead the five test series 2-0.

Third Test (4–8 January)

4–8 January 1991 Scorecard	Australia 518 (157 overs)	v	England 469/8d (172.1 overs)	Match drawn Sydney Cricket Ground, Sydney Umpires: AR Crafter (Aus) and PJ McConnell (Aus) Player of the match: MA Atherton (Eng)
	GRJ Matthews 128 (175) DE Malcolm 4/128 [45]		DI Gower 123 (236) TM Alderman 3/62 [20.1]
	205 (89 overs)		113/4 (25 overs)
	IA Healy 69 (160) PCR Tufnell 5/61 [37]		GA Gooch 54 (42) GRJ Matthews 2/26 [9]

Australia lead the five test series 2-0.

Fourth Test (25–29 January)

25–29 January 1991 Scorecard	Australia 386 (135.2 overs)	v	England 229 (81.3 overs)	Match drawn Adelaide Oval, Adelaide Umpires: LJ King (Aus) and TA Prue (Aus) Player of the match: GA Gooch (Eng)
	ME Waugh 138 (188) PAJ DeFreitas 4/56 [26.2]		GA Gooch 87 (197) CJ McDermott 5/97 [26.3]
	314/6d (104 overs)		335/5 (96 overs)
	DC Boon 121 (277) PCR Tufnell 1/28 [16]		GA Gooch 117 (188) BA Reid 2/59 [23]

• Australia lead the five test series 2-0.

Fifth Test (1–5 February)

1–5 February 1991 Scorecard	England 244 (66.4 overs)	v	Australia 307 (90.5 overs)	Australia won by 9 wickets WACA Ground, Perth Umpires: SG Randell (Aus) and CD Timmins (Aus) Player of the match: CJ McDermott (Aus)
	AJ Lamb 91 (122) CJ McDermott 8/97 [24.4]		DC Boon 64 (124) DE Malcolm 3/94 [30]
	182 (61.3 overs)		120/1 (31.2 overs)
	RA Smith 43 (70) MG Hughes 4/37 [20]		GR Marsh 63* (110) PAJ DeFreitas 1/29 [6.2]

• Australia won the five test series 3-0.

External sources

• CricketArchive – tour itinerary

Further reading

• Chris Harte, A History of Australian Cricket, Andre Deutsch, 1993

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