England played the first ever Test in history in 1887 against Australia. Australia and England were at the time the two leading cricket playing nations in the world and England played the bulk of their cricket with them. England were a strong opponent to beat always and maintained their stronghold over cricket for many years. However in the recent past, the England Cricket Team showed signs of decline and their performances were less than satisfactory. This was in the1990s when they failed to register wins against the West Indies and lost the Ashes series to Australia consecutively from 1989 to 2003. However the team has now begun to perform well again and the bad phase seems to be over.