Table of Contents
I’ve covered a lot of rivalries in 15 years of writing about this game. None of them sit where this one does.
The Australia National Cricket Team vs England Cricket Team Timeline starts in 1877, in Melbourne, when nobody involved had any idea they were founding something that would still be argued about in pubs 149 years later. Two cricket boards. Two continents. One small terracotta urn that isn’t even the real trophy, just a symbol of it.
This piece walks through that whole span. Test cricket, ODIs, T20Is, the Ashes, the World Cups, the players who made their names in these matches and the numbers that back up every argument you’ve ever had about who’s really on top. If you came here to settle a bar bet about Australia vs England cricket history, you’re in the right place. If you came for the Australia vs England Head-to-Head numbers specifically, jump to that section. Everyone else, let’s start at the beginning.
Australia vs England cricket rivalry at a glance
Before the story, the scoreboard. Numbers below are checked against current record-keeping as of September 2026. A quick note on that: different sites count Ashes Test totals slightly differently depending on how they treat abandoned matches and shortened series from the 1800s, so don’t be shocked if you see a figure a match or two off elsewhere. I’ve gone with the counts used by the major cricket databases.
| Format | Total matches | Australia wins | England wins | Other results |
|---|---|---|---|---|
| First Test meeting | 1877, Melbourne | — | — | — |
| Test matches | 361 | 152 | 112 | 97 draws |
| ODI matches | 162 | 92 | 65 | 2 tied, 3 no result |
| T20I matches | 26 | 12 | 12 | 2 no result |
| Ashes series | 74 | 35 | 32 | 7 drawn |
| Men’s ODI World Cup meetings | 10 | 7 | 3 | — |
Australia national cricket team vs England cricket team timeline
1877, the first Australia vs England Test match
Start with Melbourne. March 1877, the Melbourne Cricket Ground, and a match nobody planned as history. It was just an English touring side taking on a combined Australian XI.
Australia won by 45 runs. Charles Bannerman top-scored with 165, retiring hurt after a ball split his finger open. That innings alone was 67% of Australia’s total.
Nobody called it a “Test match” at the time. That label got attached later, once people realized what they’d started. But this is the true root of everything that follows in this rivalry, the game that made Australia vs England matches a fixture rather than a novelty.
1882, the birth of the Ashes
Five years on, England traveled to lose at home for the first time. The Oval, August 1882, Australia won by seven runs on a pitch that had both sets of batters struggling to survive.
Fred Spofforth took 14 wickets in the match and reportedly told his teammates in the field, “this thing can be done.” It was done. England collapsed in the fourth innings needing 85, folding for 77.
Two days later, a satirical obituary ran in the Sporting Times. English cricket, it said, had died, and the body would be cremated, the ashes taken to Australia. That’s the whole origin story. A joke in a newspaper column, and it stuck for a century and a half.
England’s captain the following winter, Ivo Bligh, vowed to “regain the ashes” on his tour of Australia. A group of women in Melbourne, including his future wife, presented him with a small urn as a memento. That urn now sits at Lord’s, and it’s never actually been the trophy handed over after a series win. The teams play for a Waterford crystal replica instead. The real one barely leaves its case.
1880s to 1900s, the rivalry takes shape
These decades built the habits that still define the contest. Series moved between the two countries roughly every other year. Crowds grew. Newspapers on both sides started treating results as national events rather than sports scores.
Players like Billy Murdoch, W.G. Grace and Victor Trumper turned individual Ashes innings into the kind of thing people talked about for years. Trumper in particular became Australia’s first genuine batting superstar, playing with a flair that felt out of step with the era’s caution.
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1930, Don Bradman’s Ashes era
Any honest account of this rivalry has to stop and give Don Bradman his own section. He debuted in the 1928-29 Ashes and was dropped after two Tests. Five years later he was unstoppable.
In the 1930 series in England, Bradman scored 974 runs in seven innings. That’s still the record for the most runs in a single Ashes series, and it isn’t especially close. He hit 334 at Headingley in a single day’s play that included a session where he scored 105 runs before lunch.
England had no real answer. Bradman finished his Ashes career with 5,028 runs at an average close to 90, still the highest tally either side has produced, nearly a century later.
1938, England’s record-breaking response
England eventually found an answer of sorts, even if it came too late to change much. At the Oval in 1938, Len Hutton batted for over 13 hours and scored 364, the highest individual Test score in the world at that point.
England declared on 903 for 7. Australia, without an injured Bradman for most of the match, lost by an innings and 579 runs, still the biggest margin of victory in Test history. It’s a strange footnote in Ashes lore: one of England’s greatest individual performances came in a series Australia had already wrapped up.
1940s to 1960s, post-war Australia vs England
War paused everything, and cricket picked back up cautiously. Don Bradman returned as captain for the 1946-47 and 1948 series, the latter producing his famous “Invincibles” side that went through an entire tour of England unbeaten.
Bradman’s final Test innings, at the Oval in 1948, needed just four runs for a career average of 100. He was bowled for a duck. Eric Hollies, the bowler, is one of the more trivia-friendly names in this whole rivalry.
Through the 1950s and early 1960s the contest settled into something more even, with England’s bowling attacks led by Fred Trueman and Brian Statham giving Australia real problems for the first time in a generation.
The 1970s and the introduction of ODI cricket
This decade matters for a reason that has nothing to do with the Ashes urn. On 5 January 1971, at the Melbourne Cricket Ground, Australia and England played the first men’s One Day International in history.
It happened almost by accident. Rain had wiped out the third Ashes Test entirely, and organizers scrambled for a way to give ticket holders something to watch. They settled on a 40-over-a-side match, though it later got classified at 40 overs reduced from an original plan, and Australia won by 5 wickets in front of a crowd of just over 46,000.
Nobody involved thought they were inventing a format that would eventually produce entire World Cups. It was a rain-day fix. It became the biggest growth story in the sport for the next 30 years.
The 1980s, famous Ashes battles
Ian Botham owns most of this decade in England’s telling of it. The 1981 series, still called “Botham’s Ashes,” saw England come back from 1-0 down and a Botham resignation from the captaincy to win three straight Tests, headlined by his 149 not out at Headingley in a match England had been given odds of 500 to 1 against winning.
Australia hit back hard later in the decade. Allan Border rebuilt the side from the ground up after some rough years, and by 1989 Australia had regained the Ashes in England for the first time since 1934, setting up nearly two decades of dominance.
The 1990s, a new era of Australia vs England cricket
If you’re under 40 and grew up watching this rivalry, this is probably the era that shaped your sense of it. Australia, powered by Steve Waugh’s batting, Shane Warne’s leg spin and Glenn McGrath’s relentless accuracy, turned Ashes contests almost one-sided.
Warne’s first ball in Ashes cricket, delivered to Mike Gatting at Old Trafford in 1993, has its own name now: the “ball of the century.” It pitched miles outside leg stump and clipped the top of off. Gatting reportedly stood at the crease for several seconds trying to work out what had happened.
England’s Michael Atherton fought some lone rearguard battles against that Australian attack, most famously batting almost 11 hours for an unbeaten 185 to save the Johannesburg Test against a different opponent, but the instinct he showed against Australia’s pace and spin in this decade earned him respect even in defeat.
2000 to 2010, Australia vs England’s modern rivalry
Australia carried their 1990s form into the new millennium, winning eight straight Ashes series between 1989 and 2003. Ricky Ponting took over the captaincy from Steve Waugh in 2004 and kept the machine running, mostly.
Then came 2005.
2005, one of the greatest Ashes series
If you ask ten different England fans for their favorite Ashes memory, at least seven of them will mention this series. Australia arrived as reigning champions on a 16-Test unbeaten Ashes run stretching back years. England, under Michael Vaughan, had other plans.
The second Test at Edgbaston set the tone. England won by two runs, the second-closest margin in Ashes history, after Andrew Flintoff produced a spell of reverse swing that removed Ponting and shifted the entire momentum of the summer. Flintoff finished that Test with 7 wickets and a fifty, then walked over to console Brett Lee after the final wicket fell, an image that’s been reprinted more than almost anything else from this rivalry.
Warne still finished the series with 40 wickets, a phenomenal tally in a losing cause. England won the series 2-1, their first Ashes win in 18 years, and the celebrations that followed, including an open-top bus parade through London, told you exactly how long that drought had weighed on English cricket.
2010 to 2019, Australia vs England in the modern era
Australia regained the urn in 2013-14 with a 5-0 whitewash led by Mitchell Johnson’s fast bowling, arguably the most one-sided Ashes series of the professional era. England had their own emphatic answer in 2015, winning 3-2 at home behind a young Joe Root and Stuart Broad’s 8 for 15 at Trent Bridge, a spell that bowled England to victory before lunch on day one.
Limited-overs cricket also shifted through this decade. England’s white-ball side, rebuilt after a miserable 2015 World Cup group-stage exit, transformed into the most aggressive batting unit in the format and beat Australia regularly on the way to their maiden ODI World Cup title.
2019, England’s World Cup era
England hosted and won the 2019 ODI World Cup, beating New Zealand in a final decided by a boundary countback after a Super Over, still the most dramatic finish white-ball cricket has produced. Australia weren’t in that final, having lost to England in the semis at Edgbaston.
The Ashes that followed later that same English summer ended 2-2, drawn, with England retaining the urn as holders. Steve Smith made his comeback from a ball-tampering ban with a run of scores that bordered on absurd, including twin centuries at Edgbaston in his first Test back.
2021 to 2025, recent Australia vs England matches
Australia won the 2021-22 Ashes 4-0 at home. England drew the 2023 series 2-2 in one of the most contested modern editions, one that started with a controversial stumping of Jonny Bairstow at Lord’s that both sets of fans are still arguing about.
Limited-overs form swung the other way in this stretch. England’s white-ball dominance faded fast, and Australia went on to add the 2023 ODI World Cup and the 2021 T20 World Cup to their trophy cabinet, beating New Zealand and England’s neighbors along the way rather than England directly in those particular finals.
Then came the most recently completed men’s Ashes series, played between November 2025 and January 2026. Australia won 4-1, taking the first three Tests to retain the urn before England salvaged pride with a four-wicket win at Melbourne that broke an 18-match, 14-year winless run on Australian soil. Australia closed it out at Sydney by five wickets, with Mitchell Starc named player of the series for 31 wickets and Travis Head the standout batter with 629 runs at an average past 62.
Australia vs England Head-to-Head record
This is the section people bookmark. Numbers below cover the international formats, checked as current through September 2026.
Head-to-head across formats
| Format | Matches | Australia wins | England wins | Draws/ties/NR |
|---|---|---|---|---|
| Test matches | 361 | 152 | 112 | 97 draws |
| ODI matches | 162 | 92 | 65 | 2 tied, 3 no result |
| T20I matches | 26 | 12 | 12 | 2 no result |
Australia’s advantage in Tests is built almost entirely on home soil dominance and a run of series wins between the late 1980s and mid 2000s that England has never fully closed. In ODIs, Australia’s edge is real but narrower than the Test gap suggests, 92 to 65 out of 162 played, with England’s 2015-2019 white-ball rebuild clawing back a chunk of that margin.
T20Is are the outlier, and it’s not close. 12 wins each out of 26 matches is about as even as a head-to-head record gets in international sport. Neither side has managed to build a lasting edge in the format, and recent series have swung on individual performances rather than any structural advantage either team holds.
Most runs and most wickets in the rivalry
Ashes cricket has produced some of the most one-sided individual dominance in the sport’s history. Here’s where the all-time run scorers and wicket takers stand, updated through the 2025-26 series.
Most runs in Ashes Test history
| Player | Country | Matches | Runs | Average |
|---|---|---|---|---|
| Don Bradman | Australia | 37 | 5,028 | 89.78 |
| Steve Smith | Australia | 41 | 3,637 | 56.83 |
| Jack Hobbs | England | 41 | 3,636 | 54.27 |
| Allan Border | Australia | 47 | 3,548 | 55.44 |
| Steve Waugh | Australia | 46 | 3,200 | 58.18 |
| Joe Root | England | 38 | 2,828 | 46.36 |
Bradman’s total will not be touched. He built it in 37 matches; the next four names on the all-time list needed 37 to 47 each just to get within reach, and none got close. Steve Smith moved past Jack Hobbs into outright second place during the 2025-26 series, reaching the milestone with a hundred at Sydney in what turned out to be Usman Khawaja’s final Test. Joe Root remains the leading active England run scorer in the rivalry, with a tally that keeps climbing every series he plays.
Most wickets in Ashes Test history
| Player | Country | Matches | Wickets | Average |
|---|---|---|---|---|
| Shane Warne | Australia | 36 | 195 | 23.25 |
| Glenn McGrath | Australia | 30 | 157 | 20.92 |
| Hugh Trumble | Australia | 31 | 141 | 20.88 |
| Ian Botham | England | 32 | 128 | 28.04 |
| Dennis Lillee | Australia | 24 | 128 | 22.32 |
| Bob Willis | England | 31 | 123 | 24.37 |
Warne’s tally has stood since the 2000s and there’s no active bowler within 100 wickets of catching him. Ian Botham remains England’s benchmark, a mark that has survived multiple generations of England pace attacks trying to match it, including Stuart Broad and James Anderson, both of whom finished a long way short despite outstanding overall Test careers.
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ICC tournament records between the two sides
Australia and England don’t just meet in bilateral series. They’ve collided repeatedly across the sport’s biggest global events, and the record shifts depending on which competition you’re looking at.
| Competition | Meetings | Australia wins | England wins | Notes |
|---|---|---|---|---|
| Men’s ODI World Cup | 10 | 7 | 3 | Includes the 1987 and 2015 World Cup group meetings and the 2019 semi-final |
| Men’s T20 World Cup | 3 | 1 | 2 | England hold a narrow edge, including the 2010 final |
| ICC Champions Trophy | 4 | 2 | 2 | First met at the 2004 quarter-final stage; record even since |
Last verified: September 2026. Some databases group qualifying and Super Eight-style matches differently, which is why you’ll occasionally see a Champions Trophy or T20 World Cup total that’s a match off from what’s listed here.
The pattern is worth sitting with for a second. Australia’s structural advantage in 50-over cricket, built over a decade of ruthless World Cup campaigns through the 1990s and 2000s, doesn’t carry over cleanly into T20 cricket, where England won the format’s first major trophy against Australia in the 2010 final at Barbados and have generally matched Australia blow for blow ever since.
The Ashes, Australia vs England’s greatest rivalry
What is the Ashes?
It’s a Test series played between Australia and England, contested since 1882-83, usually every two years, alternating hosts. The prize isn’t really the tiny urn kept behind glass at Lord’s; it’s the right to say you hold it, and the bragging rights that come with that claim until the next series starts.
Why is the Ashes so important?
Because it predates almost every other rivalry in the sport by decades, and because both boards have spent a century and a half building mythology around it. Bodyline, Bradman, Botham, 2005, Bairstow’s stumping in 2023: each generation gets its own flashpoint, and each one gets relitigated by the next.
Ashes series winners, selected eras
A full chronological table would run to 74 rows, so here’s the shape of it by era, with the headline series in each stretch.
| Period | Host | Winner | Result |
|---|---|---|---|
| 1882-1900s | Mixed | Australia | Early Australian dominance |
| 1928-1938 | Mixed | Mixed | Bradman era, Australia mostly on top |
| 1946-1958 | Mixed | Australia | Post-war Australian control |
| 1970-1985 | Mixed | Mixed | Even contest, Botham’s 1981 series |
| 1989-2003 | Mixed | Australia | 8 straight series wins |
| 2005 | England | England | 2-1, ended 18-year drought |
| 2006-2007 | Australia | Australia | 5-0 whitewash |
| 2010-11 | Australia | England | 3-1 |
| 2013-14 | Australia | Australia | 5-0 whitewash |
| 2015 | England | England | 3-2 |
| 2017-18 | Australia | Australia | 4-0 |
| 2019 | England | Drawn | 2-2, England retained |
| 2021-22 | Australia | Australia | 4-0 |
| 2023 | England | Drawn | 2-2, Australia retained |
| 2025-26 | Australia | Australia | 4-1 |
Overall series count: Australia 35, England 32, 7 drawn, across 74 completed series.
Most memorable Ashes series
1882. The one that started it all, decided by seven runs at the Oval.
1932-33, Bodyline. England’s captain Douglas Jardine ordered his fast bowlers to target the batter’s body with a packed leg-side field, aiming to neutralize Bradman. It worked on the scoreboard and nearly caused a diplomatic incident between the two countries.
1981. Ian Botham’s all-round performance across three Tests, capped by that 149 not out at Headingley, turned a series England were losing badly into one of the sport’s great comebacks.
2005. Covered above, and worth repeating: England’s first Ashes win in 18 years, decided by two runs in the second Test and one of the closest overall series margins on record.
2010-11. England won 3-1 away from home, with Alastair Cook scoring 766 runs including a double century at Brisbane and another at Melbourne, both career-defining innings against the country’s toughest opponent.
2019. Steve Smith’s comeback series after a year out of the game, three centuries including a double hundred, in a series that finished drawn.
2023. Bairstow’s stumping at Lord’s, Ben Stokes’ 155 in the same Test, and a series that both sides still claim they should have won outright.
2025-26. Australia’s 4-1 win, Travis Head’s 629 runs, and England’s stubborn fourth-Test win at Melbourne that stopped the whitewash and gave the tourists something to build on for the next cycle.
Australia vs England in ODI cricket
First Australia vs England ODI
5 January 1971, Melbourne Cricket Ground. Australia won by 5 wickets in the format’s first-ever match, played as a straight replacement for a washed-out Ashes Test.
Australia vs England in World Cups
Australia hold a 7-3 lead in men’s ODI World Cup meetings between the two sides, spanning group games and knockout matches from 1987 through the 2019 semi-final, where England won at Edgbaston on their way to the title.
Most memorable ODI matches
The 2019 semi-final at Edgbaston sits near the top for England fans, a chase built around Jason Roy and Eoin Morgan that ended their long wait for a World Cup semi-final win over Australia. On the Australian side, the 1987 World Cup semi-final win in Lahore, which knocked England out on their way to a first title, gets brought up constantly by anyone who watched it live.
Biggest ODI wins and highest team scores
Both sides have posted totals past 350 against the other in recent seasons, a reflection of how much white-ball scoring has shifted since the format’s early decades, when 250 was considered a match-winning total.
Australia vs England in T20 International cricket
First Australia vs England T20I
The two sides played their first T20I in 2005 at the Rose Bowl, part of the format’s earliest experimental phase before the first T20 World Cup existed.
Australia vs England T20 World Cup matches
England hold a narrow 2-1 edge in the three meetings between the sides at the tournament, including the 2010 final in Barbados, England’s first global white-ball title.
Most recent T20I results and highest scores
The two teams’ most recent bilateral series, played in England in 2024, split 2-1 in England’s favor across three matches, extending a stretch where results have gone back and forth without either side building a real winning streak. Australia’s highest T20I total against England stands at 248, set at Southampton in 2013.
Most memorable Australia vs England matches
A shortlist, in date order, for anyone who wants the highlight reel version of this rivalry rather than the full timeline.
1882, the Oval. Australia win by 7 runs. The Ashes are born from a newspaper joke the next morning.
1930, Headingley. Bradman’s 334, still one of the most dominant individual innings in Test history.
1932-33, Bodyline series. Jardine’s tactics win the series and nearly break diplomatic relations.
1981, Headingley. Botham’s 149 not out completes one of Test cricket’s great comebacks.
2005, Edgbaston. England win by 2 runs, the turning point of a series that ended an 18-year Ashes drought.
2010-11, Melbourne and Brisbane. Alastair Cook’s twin double centuries anchor a 3-1 away series win.
2019, Edgbaston World Cup semi-final. England beat Australia on the way to a maiden ODI World Cup title.
2023, Lord’s. Jonny Bairstow’s stumping and Ben Stokes’ 155 make this the most argued-about single Test of the decade.
2025-26, Sydney. Australia close out a 4-1 series win, with Steve Smith passing Jack Hobbs into outright second on the all-time Ashes run list along the way.
Famous players in Australia vs England cricket history
Australian legends
Don Bradman. The standard nobody has come close to matching, 5,028 Ashes runs at an average close to 90.
Shane Warne. 195 Ashes wickets, and the man behind the single most famous delivery in the rivalry’s history, the ball that bowled Mike Gatting in 1993.
Glenn McGrath. 157 Ashes wickets built on relentless line and length rather than raw pace, a template English batters spent a decade trying to solve.
Steve Waugh. Captained Australia through an era of near-total dominance and scored 3,200 Ashes runs along the way.
Ricky Ponting. Led Australia through the 2005 defeat and the 2006-07 revenge whitewash, both series that defined his captaincy.
Steve Smith. Currently second on the all-time Ashes run list, with three centuries in his 2019 comeback series alone.
England legends
Jack Hobbs. England’s leading Ashes run scorer for close to a century, until Steve Smith passed him in January 2026.
Len Hutton. Scored 364 at the Oval in 1938, a world record individual score at the time.
Ian Botham. England’s all-time leading Ashes wicket taker, and the central figure of the 1981 comeback series.
Andrew Flintoff. His spell at Edgbaston in 2005 shifted the momentum of that entire series.
Alastair Cook. 766 runs in the 2010-11 series, including twin double centuries that anchored a rare away win.
James Anderson. England’s most capped Ashes bowler across the modern era, a career built on swing and control rather than pace.
Every one of these names is tied to a specific series or a specific afternoon. That’s the thing about this rivalry: nobody gets remembered for a career average alone. They get remembered for what they did to the other side, on a given day, in front of a crowd that had been waiting two years for exactly that moment.
Australia vs England records and statistics
Highest team score: England, 903 for 7 declared, the Oval, 1938.
Lowest team score: Australia, 36 all out, Birmingham, 1902, still the lowest Ashes total in the modern era.
Highest individual score: Len Hutton, 364, the Oval, 1938.
Best bowling figures in an innings: Jim Laker, 10 for 53, Old Trafford, 1956, part of a match haul of 19 wickets that remains unmatched in Test history.
Biggest winning margin: England, an innings and 579 runs, the Oval, 1938.
Most runs: Don Bradman, 5,028.
Most wickets: Shane Warne, 195.
Most centuries: Don Bradman, 19.
Most five-wicket hauls: Shane Warne, 11.
Australia vs England timeline, year by year by era
| Era | Format focus | Dominant side | Series or note |
|---|---|---|---|
| 1877-1900s | Test | Even | Rivalry establishes itself |
| 1930s | Test | Australia | Bradman era |
| 1940s-60s | Test | Australia | Post-war control |
| 1970s | Test, ODI | Even | First ODI played, 1971 |
| 1980s | Test | Even | Botham’s 1981 comeback |
| 1989-2003 | Test | Australia | 8 straight series wins |
| 2005 | Test | England | Ends 18-year drought |
| 2006-2013 | Test, ODI, T20I | Mixed | Format expands, results swing both ways |
| 2015-2019 | All formats | England (white-ball), Mixed (Tests) | England’s ODI World Cup win, 2019 |
| 2021-2025 | All formats | Australia | 2021-22 and 2025-26 Ashes wins |
Australia vs England recent matches
| Date | Format | Venue | Winner | Result |
|---|---|---|---|---|
| Nov 2025 | Test | Perth | Australia | Won by 8 wickets |
| Dec 2025 | Test | Brisbane | Australia | Won by 8 wickets |
| Dec 2025 | Test | Adelaide | Australia | Won by 82 runs |
| Dec 2025 | Test | Melbourne | England | Won by 4 wickets |
| Jan 2026 | Test | Sydney | Australia | Won by 5 wickets |
This section is the one part of the page that goes stale fastest. Check back after every new series for the latest results.
Australia vs England timeline, key takeaways
Oldest rivalry in international cricket, dating back to 1877, with the Ashes name attached since 1882.
Australia lead the overall Test record, 152 wins to 112 out of 361 matches, but the gap in ODIs is narrower and T20Is are dead even.
Australia hold 35 Ashes series wins to England’s 32, out of 74 completed series.
England have the narrow edge in T20 World Cup meetings, Australia the clear edge in ODI World Cups.
The most memorable series tend to cluster around comebacks rather than dominance: 1981, 2005 and the fourth Test of 2025-26 all share that shape.
Bradman and Warne remain the two individual records nobody expects to see broken.
Also Read : Sri Lanka National Cricket Team Vs England Cricket Team Timeline
Frequently asked questions
When did Australia and England first play cricket?
Their first Test match was played in March 1877 at the Melbourne Cricket Ground, with Australia winning by 45 runs.
When did the Australia vs England rivalry begin?
The rivalry as most fans understand it began with the 1882 Oval Test, where Australia’s win on English soil led to the Ashes obituary and everything that followed from it.
Why is Australia vs England called the Ashes?
After Australia’s 1882 win at the Oval, a satirical piece in the Sporting Times joked that English cricket had died and its ashes would be taken to Australia. The name stuck permanently.
Who has won more Australia vs England Test matches?
Australia, with 152 wins to England’s 112 out of 361 Tests played, as of September 2026.
Who has won more Ashes series, Australia or England?
Australia, 35 series wins to England’s 32, with 7 series drawn across 74 completed editions.
How many times have Australia and England played each other in ODIs?
162 times, with Australia winning 92, England winning 65, 2 tied and 3 ending without a result.
How many times have Australia and England played each other in T20Is?
26 times, split evenly at 12 wins apiece, with 2 no results.
When was the first Australia vs England ODI?
5 January 1971, at the Melbourne Cricket Ground, the first men’s ODI ever played.
What was the most famous Australia vs England match?
Most fans would point to the 2005 Edgbaston Test, decided by 2 runs, though the 1882 Oval Test has the strongest claim historically since it created the Ashes itself.
Who are the best players in Australia vs England cricket history?
Don Bradman and Shane Warne top most lists on the Australian side, with Jack Hobbs, Ian Botham and Alastair Cook leading England’s contributions to the rivalry.
That’s the full sweep of it, from a rain-soaked replacement match in 1971 that turned into ODI cricket, to a satirical newspaper column in 1882 that turned into the most famous trophy in the sport. Every entry on the Australia National Cricket Team vs England Cricket Team Timeline adds another layer to an argument that’s never actually going to get settled, and honestly, that’s the whole point of it. Compare that kind of depth to something like the Australia vs Zimbabwe timeline, a fixture list with barely a handful of meetings and none of the shared history, and you get a sense of why this one rivalry keeps generating new chapters every single time these two teams walk out together.
