The much-awaited The Ashes 2023 got kick-started on Friday, June 16, with England’s Bazball Test cricket revolutionizing team taking on World Test Champions Australia at Edgbaston.
Ashes Cup series has always starred some of the best players of all time in England and Australian teams of the past. As we all know of it, both teams include players of various origins, ethnicity, and backgrounds. For example, in the current Ashes 2023, there are two players of Pakistani origin – Moeen Ali and Usman Khwaja.
Just like this, there have been players of Indian origin as well who have featured in Ashes series in the past.
Here are 5 Indian origin players who have played in the Ashes:
Nasser Hussain
Former England captain Nasser Hussain was born in Madras (now Chennai), India, in 1981. His father, Raza Jawad ‘Joe’ Hussain, was an Indian Tamil Muslim and his mother Shireen (originally Patricia Price) is English. The family moved to England in 1975.
Hussain was selected to play for the Essex Under-11s, and at 12 years old and was the youngest to play for Essex Under-15s and that kick-started his cricket career, and he went on to lead England in a couple of Ashes series as well, though those were proper drubbing received at both home and away in 2001 and 2002.
In 23 Ashes Tests against Australia, Nasser Hussain averaged 38 with 2 centuries and 11 fifties to his name.
Mark Ramprakash
A domestic legend of an English batsman, Ramprakash was of Indian origin and played 52 Tests for England, and finished his career with 461 first-class matches and over 35000 first-class runs. In 12 Ashes Tests, Ramprakash averaged a good 42 with a sole hundred to his name.
He is of Indo-Guyanese and English descent. His father, born in British Guiana, was Indo-Guyanese and his mother was English.
Monty Panesar
Renowned left-arm finger spinner Monty Panesar played 50 Test matches for England, picking up 167 wickets. Because of the pace-friendly conditions in both England and Australia, Panesar didn’t get a lot of chances to play in Ashes against Australia: he managed 14 wickets in 6 Tests.
He was born as Mudhsuden Singh Panesar in 1982 in Punjab to father Paramjit Singh and mother Gursharan Kaur. They had migrated to England in 1979 and three years later Monty was born in Luton, Bedfordshire.
Stuart Clark
Former Australian pacer Stuart Clark is the only Indian-origin player to turn up for Australia in Ashes. Stuart CAlak is the son of Anglo-Indian parents; his father Bruce Clark is from Chennai and his mother Mary is from Kolar Gold Fields (K.G.F). He was born in 1975 in Sydney.
A right-arm seamer, Clark played 7 Tests against England in Ashes and snapped 30 wickets at a brilliant average of 20.
Ravi Bopara
Former England all-rounder Ravi Bopara had a short 13-Test career, out of which 4 came in Ashes. Bopara was born into an immigrant Indian Punjabi Sikh family in 1985 in London.
