How Close the Ashes Actually Gets — 2005 and 2023, By the Numbers

England won an Ashes Test by two runs in 2005. Not two overs, not two wickets in hand — two runs, the narrowest margin in the entire history of the rivalry. If you want to understand why people still travel across the world for this fixture, that match is a better place to start than anything written about tradition or format.

Edgbaston, 2005 — as close as it's ever been

Australia arrived at the second Test of the 2005 series having won the previous eight Ashes series in a row. England had waited 16 years to get the urn back. On the final morning, Australia needed just a handful of runs to win with their last pair at the crease. Steve Harmison bowled a bouncer that brushed Michael Kasprowicz's glove; wicketkeeper Geraint Jones took the catch; umpire Billy Bowden gave it out. Replays later suggested the ball may never have touched the bat. The decision stood. England won by two runs — the closest finish in Ashes history — and went on to reclaim the urn 2-1, ending Australia's near two-decade grip on it.

2023 — four Tests decided by almost nothing

If 2005 sounds like an outlier, 2023 argues it isn't. Australia won the first Test at Edgbaston by 2 wickets. They won the second, at Lord's, by 43 runs. England won the third, at Headingley, by 3 wickets. The fourth, at Old Trafford, was washed out by rain with England holding a commanding position. England won the fifth, at The Oval, by 49 runs. The series finished 2-2, and Australia kept the Ashes on that scoreline — but four of five results came down to margins a single session could have flipped either way.

What the crowd actually sounds like

None of this happens in silence. England's traveling support, the Barmy Army, has built entire chants around specific players and specific moments — some celebratory, some pointed. When Steve Smith returned to the crowd's earshot after his 2018 ball-tampering ban, a public suspension that followed a genuinely emotional apology in which Smith broke down discussing the impact on his parents, English crowds didn't let it go quietly. It's the kind of detail that tells you this rivalry isn't polite. Cricket has a reputation, in some circles, for restraint. An Ashes crowd is not interested in maintaining it.

Why this matters for the trip, not just the history

A rivalry this evenly matched, played out in front of crowds this invested, is the actual case for going. Not the format, not the venues — the real, recent, repeated evidence that when these two teams play each other, the margins get this thin and the crowd noise matches it. That's not guaranteed by any other fixture in the sport.