For the vast majority of Test cricket’s life, all the way up to the recent invention of the World Test Championship, the notion of who is the world’s best team has been a curiously malleable one. The rankings have offered one version of events – but an imperfect, sometimes unreliable one. As such, Test ‘greatness’ has often been measured not by rankings or trophies, but by ticking off key achievements. Winning a Test series in Australia is right at the top of the list.
The uniqueness of conditions, the pace and bounce, the iconic venues and hostile crowds – the scale of winning in Australia has always felt vast. England have won just once in Australia over the last 34 years; before India managed it in 2018/19 (and repeated the feat two years later), no Asian team had ever won a Test series in Australia.