Blood and thunder Down Under

The Independent's Cricket Correspondent, Angus Fraser, who played for England on three Ashes tours, recalls his experiences of the game's oldest and fiercest rivalry

Philip Tufnell and I had just been to the gym as England prepared for the first Test of the 1990-91 Ashes series. We were relaxing in a hot tub on the top of the Terrace Hotel in Adelaide. The view over the city is stunning. We both agreed that this was the life.

Realising that things could not get much better, we vowed to do whatever we could to make these sort of experiences last forever. Tuffers failed to step foot in a gym again in Australia and following this tour I spent the next 30 months out of the game injured. Our intentions that evening were good.

As a tour, Australia was always the one to be selected for. It still is considered the ultimate trip for an England cricketer. What can beat being well paid to play a game you love for your country in a place like this? You stay in five-star hotels and receive good expenses that allow you to enjoy the best this wonderful country has to offer. From the moment you leave British soil you are spoilt rotten. It is only when the cricket starts that the problems begin.

Playing against Australia has always been special to me probably because, like any cricket-mad teenager, I used to lie in bed and listen to the radio commentary of England taking on the Aussies during the middle of the night. I would fall asleep dreaming of one day playing at the Melbourne Cricket Ground.

England against Australia were the biggest games I played in, even if they supplied me with more agony than ecstasy. I made my debut against them in 1989 at Edgbaston and played my last Test at the MCG in 1998. During that time I pitted my wits against the men with baggy green caps in 12 Test matches, three of which England won. Unfortunately, we lost five, drew four and never held the Ashes.

Matches against Australia have been the most stressful and nerve-racking I have had as a cricketer and even though playing Down Under was the toughest cricket I have played it was also the most rewarding. If you could do it here in Australia you could do it anywhere.

I thought playing in front of full houses at Lord's and in the Caribbean would have conditioned me well for Australia but nothing could have prepared me for the experience of a Boxing Day Test at the MCG. On the tour of all tours this was supposed to be the game of all games. Full, it can hold over 100,000 and standing in the middle is like being in the Colosseum. The deep roar that follows Australia hitting a boundary or taking a wicket is deafening and a captain can only change the field through hand signals. Shouting is a waste of time.

For me the 1990 Test at the MCG was the most fraught five days of my fledgling Test career. In looking forward to the occasion I had built this match up so much that I could hardly watch the cricket once the game had started. Rather than cheering on England's batsmen from the balcony, I was to be found lying on the floor of our dressing-room, which is situated in the bowels of one of the huge stands that tower over the ground, listening to my personal stereo.

England lost that Melbourne Test but there are things about it, other than the nerves, that I will never forget. I took six wickets in Australia's first innings ­ Bruce Reid took 13 in the match ­ and there was a huge hole at one end of the ground where the Great Southern Stand now sits. This new stand holds 42,000 people but the gap thankfully meant that the notorious Bay 13 section of the crowd could not get at me on this occasion.

While fielding in front of this famous area of seating it is advantageous to have eyes in the back of your head. Tinnies (beer cans), bottles, fruit, pies, golf balls and little balloons full of urine fly in your direction when you are not looking, as well as a non-stop tirade of abuse. Eight years later, however, there was no escape!

There are benefits of fielding in such positions, though. My wife has never been able to upset me since touring Australia because there is very little anyone could say that would now cause me offence.

While the building site prevented the crowd getting to me, the pitch and the weather did. During this match my hip troubles started and the weather was as remarkable as any I experienced during my career.

On the second day a northerly wind ­ which comes straight from the desert ­ blew in at lunchtime. England were batting and managed to do so for half the day. Sitting in our air-conditioned dressing-room we had no idea of the temperature outside other than the sky was blue and it was a bit blustery. That was until I went out to bat. Opening the door, a wall of heat hit me. It was like walking into an oven.

With dust and paper blowing everywhere we went out to field and while bowling I noticed I was not sweating. I wiped my brow with my hand to find no sweat, just a healthy covering of salt. In the 40 degree-plus heat the sweat evaporates before it has the chance to cool you down. Anyway, after two or so hours of running around in this you start shaking, feeling cold and I'm sure at one stage I was hallucinating. Well, it was either that or I caught Mike Atherton smiling.

After an indifferent bowling performance I sat contemplating in the dressing-room long after everyone else had made their way back to the hotel. Thumbing a lift, Geoffrey Boycott picked me up after a day's commentary. He said: "Gus, you bowled crap this evening." I said: "I know." He said: "Keep it simple and stay within your limitations."

After a night waking up with cramp I did as he said and took six wickets the next day. His advice was something I kept throughout the rest of my career.

This tour also gave me my first experience of playing under lights and what a thrill it was. The colour, the crowds, the whole spectacle was amazing. And while it is nice to see it played in Great Britain, our attempts are third division in comparison. In one game at the MCG, England were being beaten by Australia in front of 70,000 people when Tufnell came to join me at the crease. Somehow we put a partnership together, were in with a chance and the atmosphere started to rise. Chatting between overs, we could not stop laughing. Once again we could not believe that two lads from Middlesex Second XI were out here with the emotions of 70,000 people in the palm of our hands. It did not last long. We lost.

In 1994-95 I was left out of the original squad by Raymond Illingworth for Martin McCague and Joey Benjamin. I was devastated but rather than sulk all winter I decided to travel to Sydney and play grade cricket for my old club Western Suburbs. After six weeks settling down, my wife and I eventually found a flat we liked.

On our first night in our new home the phone went. It was Mike Smith, the England tour manager. He asked if I could catch the next flight to Brisbane. Devon Malcolm had chickenpox and they wanted cover for the first Test.

My wife, with an 18-month-old baby, was not pleased at me dropping everything and leaving her on her own on the other side of the world. But what could you do? Anyway, off I excitedly went. Having had two months worrying about my future, on joining the squad I could not believe the triviality of the team's problems.

It dawned upon me then what a false privileged little world we lived in as cricketers. All I heard was: "He was doing this, he was doing that, this was not being done, this was." I felt like saying: "Will you lot get real. Stop moaning, get out there and get stuck in. You don't know how lucky you are."

England lost that series when the first ball of it was crashed for four by Michael Slater. At lunch on the first day I was sent back to Sydney, only to join up with the squad a couple of weeks later when McCague went home injured.

England got stuffed in Brisbane. Shane Warne was magnificent and I can still see him bowling Alec Stewart with a flipper. Stewart, whose bat came down like a guillotine, spent the rest of the innings behind the bowler's arm attempting to pick the delivery that had bamboozled him.

At Melbourne, Warne got a hat-trick and Tufnell on going out to bat came out with the immortal line: "Fletch, [team manager, Keith Fletcher] I'm on a ******* pair, on a ******* quadruple here. What should I do?" There was no reply. The game had gone.

At Sydney I got my chance. Once again, wracked by nerves, I batted and bowled at the other end whilst Darren Gough came of age with a fifty and five wickets. We were winning the game when Athers unbelievably declared on Graeme Hick. He was on 98 and we were in total control but the declaration deflated the side. I have never seen Graeme so angry. He did not speak to Athers, who stood next to him at slip, all afternoon. At one stage we were in danger of losing but in favourable conditions I took five wickets and we nearly won a brilliant game. At the end of the match, with the press all over me, there were a lot of things I wanted to say about my omission in the first place. I bit my tongue and I'm glad I did.

In Adelaide, Greg Blewett followed in the footsteps of Mark Waugh four years earlier and scored a century on debut. However, England won a famous victory with Devon Malcolm and Chris Lewis taking four wickets apiece in Australia's second innings. Once again I was back in the thick of it and life was as it was with Tuffers in Adelaide.

In the last Test we were brought down to earth with a bump. It was the last Test for both Graham Gooch and Mike Gatting, who were retiring, and we got hammered. Steve Waugh was left stranded on 99 when his twin brother Mark ran out Steve's partner, who he was running for. Craig McDermott bowled magnificently all series and England got their first look at Glenn McGrath.

My last Ashes tour should have been the business. England travelled to Australia in 1998 with a strong, confident side, having beaten South Africa at home in a five Test series. I was as happy as I had ever been, having had a wonderful 10 months in which I had taken 54 Test wickets.

However, it was a trip too far for me. Australia as a tour will highlight any weaknesses in your game and the one in mine was out of my control – age. I was not helped by the way I was handled, though, and after one average performance in Brisbane I got the axe.

The Perth Test was over in three days and the Adelaide Test started with another 45 degree northerly. This time, however, I was delivering fluid rather than drinking it. After another fancy dress Christmas Day lunch I travelled to the ground on Boxing Day expecting to be 12th man. For some strange reason Alec Stewart took a look in my kit bag as we left the hotel. Only at the MCG did I realise Alex Tudor had gone lame and he was checking I had my whites with me.

Once again I had the chance to get back in the limelight but on this occasion I did not have the vigour. I was as nervous as I was in 1990 when I walked out on the field and spent the game playing a supporting role to Gough and Dean Headley. Both bowled superbly after a magnificent catch by Mark Ramprakash got us back in the game. We won and the scenes of jubilation were long and thirsty.

In Sydney I made way for a younger model and we were stuffed, despite a Gough hat-trick. Getting drunk with the Aussies in their dressing room at the end of the series is a privilege money cannot buy. I swapped shirts with McGrath, who wrote: "Good luck in getting to 200" after taking his 200th Test wicket during this match. I knew I wouldn't get there and I think he did too!