21 Up

Philip Brown with a vintage line-up

The 2005 Ashes…. What an incredible series that was. I had been covering cricket as a photographer for about 16 years at that point and remember being quite excited before it. I’d suggested that a book on the series, featuring my photos of course, to anyone booky who would listen. There were no takers for that idea probably as a result of England’s dismal record against Australia. England hadn’t won the Ashes since the 1986/7 series and Australia had the might of Shane Warne, Glenn McGrath, Ricky Ponting, Matthew Hayden, Adam Gilchrist and Justin Langer in their team. How could that Australia side be beaten?

Well you kind of spoil this story by knowing what happened in the 2005 Ashes. You know the result, so don’t pretend you don’t!

Anyway, in 2024 I’d decided it would be a great and challenging project to attempt to take portraits of the twelve players who had represented England in this brilliant and memorable series. I’d done a similar thing during Covid when I’d photographed the seventeen surviving members of the 1981 Ashes series, including the Baron himself.

Arise, Sir Ian

I sent out emails to a lot of the players and spoke to a couple face-to-face, warning them that I’d be tapping them on their shoulder soon and wanting a portrait. All were fine with the idea but towards the end of May last year I realised I had to get on with it. I bought ten black t-shirts from Primark for a total of £25, grabbed my white cardboard background, some gaffer tape, a light, my stool and headed off in my car. I’d noticed that Andrew ‘Freddie’ Flintoff was coaching the Lions at Canterbury on 28 May and thought I’d start right there. I arrived at the ground at about 11.30am and spotted Andrew and asked him if he’d received the email about my portrait project. He confirmed that he had and agreed to pose for a photo after the Lions training session was completed.

I set up my ‘studio’ under a stand at the Canterbury ground and turned on my studio light. A loud bang and lots of smoke suddenly appeared. Not a great start. Luckily I remembered there was an old LED panel light in the boot of the car, so I grabbed that, and it proved to be brilliant for the next couple of months.