The Ashes: When does the 2025 series start, squads and how to watch Australia vs England – The Telegraph

Ben Stokes’s team can join the pantheon of English cricket greats with a rare series victory Down Under
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The 2025-26 Ashes series gets under way next week and England captain Ben Stokes has responded to the “has-beens” who have criticised his team’s preparations.
Graham Gooch, speaking to Telegraph Sport last month, said he did not understand England’s warm-up schedule and this week Ian Botham said it is “not the way I would prepare” for such a big series.
Countering such suggestions, Stokes said: “There’s quite a few factors that play into the whole of why we can’t prepare how has-beens maybe prepared in the past.”
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TNT Sports has exclusive live coverage in the UK, and their broadcast teams will be split between these shores and Australia.
A sport-only subscription will cost you £30.99 per month. You can watch TNT Sports channels on EE TV, Sky and Virgin Media.
Cricket Australia sold the UK radio rights for Tests and the Big Bash from 2023-27 to BBC Sport who will be covering the series with ball-by-ball commentary on Test Match Special throughout the series.
TNT Sports have confirmed their lead commentators will be Alastair Eykyn, best known as a key plank of TNT’s rugby coverage, and Rob Hatch, an award-winning cycling commentator.
The pair will be calling the game “off tube” through the night from a studio in London.
In Australia, Becky Ives, who works for TNT on football and boxing, will lead the on-the-ground team where she will be joined by former Ashes winners Sir Alastair Cook, Graeme Swann and Steven Finn.
Former England player Ebony Rainford-Brent will also do commentary stints alongside Eykyn and Hatch in the UK and TNT say there could yet be input from other broadcasters in Australia.
England’s 2025-26 tour of Australia begins at a new Ashes venue, Perth’s state-of-the-art Optus Stadium.
As revealed by Telegraph Sport last July, England have been spared a series opener at the Gabba in Brisbane, where they have not won a Test since November 1986 and have so often got off to dreadful starts in the Ashes.
Instead, the series will open at the 61,000 Perth Stadium, which hosts its first Ashes Test, having replaced the Waca Ground as West Australia’s biggest venue.
This will be followed by a day-night Test at the Gabba, the first pink-ball Ashes Test at the ground. The last two series have featured a pink-ball Test at Adelaide Oval, but that ground has been handed its preferred pre-Christmas slot for a daytime match.
The series continues at the Melbourne Cricket Ground on Boxing Day and concludes at the Sydney Cricket Ground.
England’s preparation for the Ashes has attracted criticism, notably from former captain and coach Graham Gooch in an interview with Telegraph Sport.
Prior to the series, England play three Twenty20 internationals and three one-day internationals against New Zealand.
Their only red-ball cricket before the first ball is bowled in Perth is expected to come in the form of an intra-squad practice match.
It is a far cry from the 1936-37 Ashes tour for which England were away for around five months.
Josh Hazlewood limped out of a state game with a right hamstring injury. The Australian fast bowler was scanned and cleared of a strain and will head to Perth as planned for the first Test.
Steve Smith will captain Australia in the first Ashes Test after Pat Cummins was ruled out through injury.
Cummins, who has not bowled since Australia’s series win over the West Indies in July, could also miss a considerable chunk of the series because of a back injury. In his Telegraph Sport column, Michael Vaughan says that the loss of Cummins makes England favourites to regain the urn.
Marnus Labuschagne is in line for a prompt return to Australia’s XI after his red-hot form won a recall to the squad for the first Test, alongside the uncapped opener Jake Weatherald.
It is likely that only one place in the XI will go to a player (Weatherald or Beau Webster) who has not played Ashes cricket before, and the first thing that stands out is the age of the squad. There is just one player, 26-year-old Cameron Green, who is in his 20s, while seven are north of 34, including the entire first-choice attack.
Green has been working his way back from a stress fracture of the back, and recently struggled with a side issue. He played the most recent Sheffield Shield round as a specialist batsman, but if he can prove his fitness to bowl, Australia will be able to make their final decisions on their XI.
If Green bowls extensively, it is likely that he bats No 6 and Webster – who has done nothing wrong in the early part of his Test career – is dropped. That would mean Weatherald opens and Labuschagne slots in at his favoured No 3. If he cannot bowl, Webster would be retained, and Green would remain at first drop with Labuschagne opening.
If left-hander Weatherald does play, that could open the door for England fast bowler Jofra Archer to have an instant impact on the series. Archer averages just 22 against left-handers, compared to 34 against right-handers, and Australia could have six lefties in their team for Perth
England named their 16-man squad for the Ashes last month with Shoaib Bashir selected as the specialist spinner and fast bowler Mark Wood recovering from a knee injury. England are expected to rotate their seamers, with Brydon Carse, Josh Tongue, Matthew Potts and Gus Atkinson other bowling options.
Odds to win the series:
The first Ashes series was played in 1882-83. Since then, there have been 73 series with Australia winning 34 and England 32. Seven series have finished as a draw.
Australia have enjoyed the upper hand in recent times, with England not winning a series since the summer of 2015 on home soil.
England have won away series just twice since 1980, with those victories coming in 1986-87 and 2010-11. Those teams have passed into greatness, such is the difficulty of winning in Australia.
Should this series finish as a draw, Australia would retain the urn.
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