Bengaluru, July 30: England will lock horns with arch-rivals Australia in the high-profile Ashes series at home starting on Thursday (August 1).

The Three Lions' winning the ICC Cricket World Cup 2019 and the returns of David Warner and Steve Smith (after serving bans) into the Australian squad have made the upcoming Ashes even more of an attractive event. The series also marks the inauguration of the World Test Championship.

There are several great moments in the history of the Ashes. Though Australia currently own the urn, they have not won an Ashes on English soil since 2001 which makes the upcoming contest even more absorbing.

Today, we look back at the 2015 series that was played in England. Alastair Cook's side won the first Test by 169 runs but Michael Clarke's men came back hard to hammer them by 405 runs in the second. England then won the third by 8 wickets to take a 2-1 lead. Australia were under pressure to win the two remaining games.

Shortest first innings in Tests

It was at Trent Bridge, Nottingham, where England won the toss and sent the opponents to bat and it was all Stuart Broad from there. The seamer ripped the Australian top order apart and ended up with career-best figures of eight for 15 that saw the visitors getting bundled out for a paltry 60. The Australian innings lasted only 18.3 overs and of them, 9.3 were bowled by the spearhead. It was the shortest first innings ever to be recorded in the history of Test cricket and Australia were only left to catch up from then onwards in the game.

England declared their first innings score at 391 for nine with Joe Root slamming 130. And trailing by 331 runs, Australia though had a good start with their openers putting up 113 runs, but Ben Stokes' six for 36 rattled them once again and they were all out for 253 to lose by an innings and 78 runs. Broad ended up with nine wickets in the game to win the man of the match award and England went on to win yet another Ashes.