The Strangers Who Came Home ─ The First Australian Cricket Tour of England, 1878

The Ashes cricket series, played out between England and Australia, is the oldest, and arguably the most keenly contested, rivalry in international sport. And yet the majority of the first representative Australian cricket team to tour England in 1878 in fact regarded themselves as Englishmen.

In May of that year the SS City of Berlin docked at Liverpool, and the Australians stepped onto English ground to begin the inaugural first-class cricket tour of England by a representative overseas team. As they made their way south to play the MCC in the second match of the tour, the intrepid tourists, or "the strangers," as they were referred to in the press, encountered arrogance and ignorance, cheating umpires and miserable weather. But by defeating a powerful MCC side in a single afternoon's play, they turned English cricket on its head. The Lord's crowd, having openly laughed at the tourists, wildly celebrated a victory that has been described as "arguably the most momentous six hours in cricket history" and claimed the Australians as their own.

The Strangers Who Came Home is a compelling social history which brings that momentous summer to life, telling the story of these extraordinary men whose glorious achievements on the field of play threw open the doors to international sports touring, and how these men from the colonies provided the stimulus for Australian nationhood through their sporting success and brought unprecedented vitality to international cricket.

John Lazenby has since 1997 worked as a freelance journalist on national newspapers including the Times, the Sunday Times, and the Guardian, and as a sports broadcaster for both radio and television. His first book,Test of Time: Travels in Search of a Cricketing Legend, was selected as a finalist for the MCC/Cricket Society's Book of the Year award in 2005, longlisted for the William Hill Sports Book of the Year, and chosen as one ofThe Wisden Cricketer's Books of the Year for 2005. He lives in London.