By Horace Zaltzman
A rather different Ashes contest took place last month that garnered a rather unusual result
The three-match ‘Transplant Ashes’, contested between the England and Wales Transplant CC and the Lucky Stars Australia Transplant Cricket team, saw the home team walk away with two of the three engraved stumps granted for a match victory.
The England and Wales team is made up of transplantees of all kinds, whether they be recipients of a replacement organ, or have undergone stem cell treatment.
“We accept them all,” said captain Adam Phillips. “What we do is we come together for the love of cricket, the ups and downs of cricket, and we celebrate the fact that transplantation works.”
Ultimately, the series is about raising awareness, and sending a message to people who have experienced equivalent challenges that there is always the chance of a second innings.
“The constant message that I give to the team is, ‘We’re here to show the overall benefits of organ donation, and how well it can work’.”
The Transplant Ashes was established around 2001 when the Australian team put out a challenge to the England side to come down to Australia to face them off in the inaugural series of a campaign that has just finished its third iteration.
Phillips first got involved in 2011, when the Australian team came to the UK for the first time, and has been a central figure ever since.
This time round they played three games – a pair of 40-over matches and a single T20.
The home side won both longer-format games by a considerable margin following impressive batting performances of 273 and 286, but lost the T20, with Australia chasing 109 for the loss of five wickets.
Philips emphasised that the results, while important, are secondary to the sense of togetherness and community fostered by this coming together of people able to share their stories.
"As much as competitiveness falls into it, to an extent, it was a very joyous occasion," he said.
"We got locals involved as much as possible, so we ran a player-of-the-match voting ballot system, where everyone who was watching got to vote for their player for both the English side and the Australian side, and we gifted trophies for both of them in a little presentation.”
There are numerous transplant sports teams in the UK. The ‘Transplant Games’ is open to patients across every hospital in the UK.
“Essentially, there’ll be a thousand-plus competitors, who have had all organs donated; hearts, livers, lungs, and they’ll compete in Olympic-style events,"Phillips said. "So there’s athletics, archery, swimming, golf.”
The transplant community do what they do to help each other. They fund their own series and competitions, banding together via shared experience between groups from opposite sides of the world.
“It’s amazing, the fact that we’ve all had transplants and that fact can bring such a diverse group of people together. It’s really quite special," he added.
Phillips’ squad is made up of teenagers all the way up to transplantees in their early sixties.
“The fact that they can spread awareness through playing the sport they enjoy and bringing happiness to people wherever a game happens, just goes to show how much a ‘second chance’ means for the transplantees," he said.
“We all wouldn’t probably be here if it hadn't been for our donors. So, what we do is we travel around the country, we travel to local clubs, primarily with a local connection to one of our players, or somebody who knows somebody who plays there, and we play their local teams, spreading the word of organ donations.”
You can follow the England and Wales Transplant CC team, and learn about their cause, via the organ donation website, and the team's Instagram account – @ewt_cc.
The 2025 Transplant Ashes - results
June 9 - Chipping Camden CC, Gloucestershire
England 273-9 (Coote 43*, Watson 41*) beat Australia 112-9 (Ward 2-9, Goodger 2-14) by 161 runs
June 11 - Haxey CC, Lincolnshire
England 109-5 (Coote 34*) lost to Australia 112-5 (Coote 2-14) by four wickets
June 13 - New Farnley CC, Leeds, Yorkshire
England 286-3 (Goodger 51 retired, Fairbrass 51 retired, Watson 50*, Phillips 46) beat Australia 173 (Gupta 50*, Loddington 42; Ward 5-30) by 113 runs