5 cricketers you didn't know played the Ashes
From a satirical obituary to one of the most hotly contested events in world cricket, the Ashes, more than just an 11-cm urn, is a brewing rivalry that has failed to lose its sheen over the last 130 years. The England-Australia battle has seen a variety of players from different walks of life take the field for the ultimate glory.
A few of them, however, have been unusual names. Here are five of them:
Special mention: The great poet, Lord Alfred Tennyson's grandson Lionel, the 3rd Baron of Tennyson, captained the English side during the 1921 Ashes, playing four of his nine Tests against Australia.
#5 Kepler Wessels
The man who led the ‘new South Africa’ during their memorable series against India at home in 1992, after their long-standing fight against apartheid, is one of the few players to represent two cricketing nations, and the first cricketer to play ODIs for two countries.
Exactly a decade before he played his first game for the Proteas, Wessels had a blockbuster debut for Australia, scoring a sublime 162 in his very first Test at Brisbane, following it up with handy 40s and 50s in the four-Test series, the first Ashes that he played.
He backed it up with another series against England, in 1985, where he got starts but couldn’t post a three-digit score in six games.