Australia

No fixture defines Australia the way the Ashes does. Every meeting with England carries that name, and it still sets the calendar apart from anything played against India, the West Indies or New Zealand, however hard those rivalries have grown since.

The rivalry exists because Australia turned up first. The side beat England by 45 runs at the Melbourne Cricket Ground in March 1877, in what stands as the game's first official Test, and the result gave the fixture its edge from the start.

Between 1999 and 2011 that edge became something closer to routine domination, with a run of 25 consecutive one-day international wins. The team built for that stretch is remembered now as a golden generation, though Australian cricket had already produced its own myth decades earlier: the 1948 touring side under Don Bradman went through England unbeaten and became known as The Invincibles. Bradman's Test average of 99.94 has stood as the sport's most cited number ever since.

Shane Warne took 708 Test wickets.

The team plays in the baggy green cap that gives it its nickname. Six World Cup wins, the 2023 World Test Championship and the 2021 T20 World Cup fill out the honours board.