Iconic 2005 series will never be beaten as memories flood back of magical summer

The memories remain fresh - as though it all happened yesterday - of a transcendent series that transfixed the nation.

It was a summer that saw England, under the charismatic leadership of our very own Michael Vaughan, challenge an Australian team that was quite simply one of the greatest to have played the game, led by the indomitable Ricky Ponting and featuring such legends of the game as Glenn McGrath and Shane Warne.

For years, the Ashes had been a source of huge disappointment for England and their supporters, resulting in drubbing after drubbing at home and abroad.

But 2005 was different, 2005 was special.

Right from that very first day - July 21, 2005 - there was something unique about this series, something which, because of the backstory and all the great cricket and players involved, can never be surpassed.

It began with a heavy defeat for Vaughan’s men at Lord’s, establishing a misleadingly familiar pattern that threatened to extinguish all hope before it had ignited.

England were hammered by 239 runs - McGrath taking match figures of 9-82 - and the recollection of seeing the Australian players on the outfield afterwards with their families, relaxing and playing games without a care in the world, remains fresh in the mind.

For those players, it was business as usual, the first expected step towards winning the urn for a ninth successive time.

But we had seen enough on that first day - in retrospect anyway - to suggest that this script might contain plot twists of an unsettling nature for the men from Down Under.

Right from the outset, it was clear that England, under Vaughan’s leadership, were not merely looking to compete, but to dominate.

The game was just a few overs old, indeed, when Steve Harmison unleashed a venomous bouncer that clattered into Ponting's helmet, leaving the Australia captain dazed and confused, bloodied and bruised, the noise of the crowd merely adding to his trauma.

This was not the timid England of old, the England that simply bent over obligingly to have its backside spanked.

This was an England ready to carry the fight to the opposition with no backward step taken.

A tone had been set.

Harmison, with his disconcerting pace and bounce, took five wickets as Australia were dismissed for 190 runs in 40.2 overs.

He was ably assisted by Yorkshire’s relentlessly accurate Matthew Hoggard, the electrifying all-rounder Andrew Flintoff, and the wily swing of Simon Jones, who together formed a unit that would steal the nation’s hearts.

By the close of that first day, a day not so much frenetic as hyperactive, England were reeling on 92-7 - actually a recovery from 21-5 - as Australia hit back in the manner of champions.

Yet even amid the wreckage of that collapse, a beacon of audacious talent had emerged in the form of Kevin Pietersen, a precocious 25-year-old debutant instantly recognisable by his distinctive skunk hairdo which spoke volumes for his self-confidence and chutzpah.

Pietersen came to the crease with the air of someone who knew he belonged on the biggest stage of all, and went on to score two half-centuries in the game, showcasing a fearless approach that belied his inexperience and Australia’s reputation.

On one occasion, Pietersen contemptuously hoisted the great Warne into the pavilion for a straight six that scattered the MCC members, a stroke so audacious that it was the equivalent of walking across St John’s Wood Road at rush hour while wearing a blindfold.

It was a moment that not only encapsulated Pietersen's extraordinary talent, but which also provided a thrilling preview of the exhilarating cricket that was to come.

On to Edgbaston for what came to be regarded as the greatest Test match in the greatest series.

Long before the idea was a twinkle in the eye of Ian Smith, the New Zealand commentator and former player, England won by the barest of margins - a mere two runs - amid tension so great that every ticket should rightly have come with a defibrillator.

After England scored at the Bazball-ish rate of five runs an over on the first day, seizing on McGrath’s absence through a collision with a stray ball in the warm-up, and emphasising that they would not be cowed by what happened at Lord’s, it all came down to Australia wanting 282 for victory to establish what would surely have been an unassailable 2-0 advantage.

At 175-8, Ponting and his crew looked dead and buried, but Warne, Brett Lee and Michael Kasprowicz showed great fighting spirit to carry them to the cusp of a remarkable triumph.

Lee and Kasprowicz added 59 for the last wicket before Kasprowicz was controversially given out caught behind off Harmison, replays suggesting that his glove was off his bat handle at the time of impact.

This was in the days before DRS of course, and umpire Billy Bowden’s raised crooked finger sparked untrammelled joy among Vaughan and his men and the country at large, one now gripped by Ashes fever and, crucially, still able to follow every ball on terrestrial television.

The match ended with a moment of magnificent sportsmanship, Flintoff consoling a distraught Lee in a defining image of the series and the summer.

It was a picture that was worth a book full of words, a distillation of the essence of professional sport as it should be played – hard but graciously.

The third Test at Old Trafford was drawn, although that scarcely hinted at the nerve-shredding drama. Left to score a world record 423 to win, following a first innings century from Vaughan and some excellent bowling from Jones in particular, Australia, at one stage, were 263-5 before Jones bowled Michael Clarke.

On a day when thousands were locked outside the ground, such was the interest, Ponting anchored the innings with a brilliant hundred only for his departure, four overs from the finish, to leave the 10th-wicket pair of Lee and McGrath clinging on for dear life.

That they duly managed as Australia finished on 371-9 and then celebrated in a fashion which Vaughan used as motivation for the subsequent three-wicket win at Trent Bridge, where England held their nerve - just - chasing 129 in the face of the towering presence of Warne, with Hoggard and Ashley Giles seeing them over the line.

It was a Test that had it all - a fine century from Flintoff, another five-fer from Jones, the most memorable of flying slip catches by Andrew Strauss to dismiss Adam Gilchrist and, of course, the run-out of Ponting by substitute fielder Gary Pratt.

More than eight million people watched the conclusion to the match on television as England took a 2-1 lead going into the final Test at the Oval.

There, amid the shadow of the famous gasometer, and as a nation held its breath, a hundred by Strauss was answered by ones from Justin Langer and Matthew Hayden as the hosts took the narrowest of first innings leads - 373 to 367.

England needed only to draw but flirted with a final day collapse that would have allowed Australia a potential chase, Warne taking six wickets for the second time in the match but, crucially, dropping Pietersen in the slips early in his innings.

Pietersen went on to score a hair-raising 158 while Warne (40 wickets in the series at an average of 19.92) delivered one of the all-time great performances in a losing cause.

The match ended amid champagne scenes and continued with an open-topped bus parade through the streets of the capital, the players bleary-eyed amid swaying seas of jubilation.

It was a series that went far beyond the narrow confines of cricket, a cultural phenomenon that brought the country together and drew in those who had never previously shown an interest in the the game, sparking conversations in pubs, workplaces and homes across the land.

It reminded us of the great power of sport to captivate and inspire, the series firing the imagination of children and giving them a lifelong love of the game.

Can it really, possibly, be 20 years ago?

In many ways, it is testament to the impact that it made, and the impression that it left, that it seems a lot more recent than that, a defining moment in our sporting history.