A Barmy Morning In The Edgbaston Sunshine.

It’s 1997 and England enjoy a dream start in the Ashes. Sadly, old ghosts were still lurking.

- Richard Edwards

It’s hilarious if you watch it on YouTube,” says Mark Ealham, laughing. “You’ve got Nasser(Hussain) waving his bat at the crowd and charging around the square – then you’ve got me chasing him trying to shake his hand. I’ve never let him forget it.”

It’s little wonder that the future England skipper was getting carried away. He had, after all, become the first English batsman since David Gower in 1985 to score an Ashes double century. He had also helped to set up an unimaginably positive start to the summer against an Australian side that had been expected to whoop Mike Atherton’s men out of sight.

Hussain’s batting heroics followed a bowling display that, at times, defied belief. A raucous Edgbaston crowd barely had time to put a glass to their lips, so often were they raising their hands in celebration at the fall of yet another Australian wicket on an opening morning that has gone down in Ashes folklore.

For England, it was the stuff of dreams. For the Aussies, it was a nightmare throwback to the mid Eighties when their hated foe routinely maintained the whip hand.

“There was a really positive feeling at that time, even talk of a new era of success,” says Ealham. “We had beaten the Aussies 3-0 in the one-day series before the Tests and we’d seen players like Ben Hollioake coming through and doing incredible things. Everyone had a massive smile on their face.”

None was broader than those of the England supporters who had poured into Edgbaston on a bright June morning that would begin with the Aussies winning the toss and would end with them shell-shocked in their dressing room.