There have doubtless been stranger cricket matches – but not many.

It took place in 43C (110F) heat in the desert of southern Iraq, within sight of the ancient Ziggurat of Ur and birthplace of Abraham, beneath a fluttering Stars and Stripes. The pitch was a strip of concrete in the scorching sand. The visiting team flew in by helicopter, but arrived an hour late because of a rocket attack. Nobody was too worried: the game had already been postponed for a week by lack of beer.

The “Ashes in the Desert” pitted the British Army’s 1 Mechanised Brigade against the Overwatch Battlegroup West 3 from Darwin, Australia. The venue was the US Air Force base at Tallil. And it was played with the same intense rivalry that characterises any sporting encounter between teams of Poms and Aussies – and with the same inevitable result.

The British team flew up from Basra brimming with confidence. They arrived wearing an England one-day cricket strip donated by the English Cricket Board, but with a feature seldom seen at Lord’s – SA80 rifles slung over their shoulders. They had new bats and pads and the same cheery optimism that invariably precedes an English rout. “We’re up for this, and expect to tonk you boys back into the Stone Age,” Lieutenant Tim Moore, the match organiser, rashly informed the hosts. The Australians were entirely unfazed. They had secured the support of a large and vociferous crowd by giving most of their 550-strong contingent the afternoon off and relaxing the rules to allow them two tinnies each.

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England won the toss. Their captain, Major Giles Malec, was bowled first ball and after that it was downhill all the way. There was nobody standing on top of the ziggurat. But if there had been they would have heard constant cries of “Howzat” followed by raucous cheers echoing off its 4,000-year-old walls.

As England’s wickets tumbled Captain Elizabeth McGovney, 26, from Houston, Texas, watched bemused. “We’re trying to figure it out,” she said. “Six pitches make an over and out, is that what it’s called?” The appearance of two streakers delayed another England collapse, but only briefly. The visitors were skittled for 93 runs in 15 overs, and there was no chance of them being saved by rain.

As England’s fielders turned crimson beneath the blazing sun Australia rattled off the runs for the loss of just two wickets. “An Australian battlegroup has smashed a British brigade,” Lieutenant-Colonel Jake Ellwood, the Australian commander, crowed at the prize-giving ceremony.

“The cricket today was clearly a disaster,” Brigadier-General James Bashall, the British commander, ruefully conceded. But actually everyone was a winner. The game raised $14,000 (£6,900) for wounded soldiers, and generated a commodity all too rare in today’s Iraq: fun.

Some sticky wickets

— Army and Navy pensioners held a cricket match between one-armed and one-legged veterans in Camberwell, London, in August 1841. The Army lost by 19 runs to 176, allegedly because they had more one-legged players

— British Empire troops fighting in Gallipoli used cricket as a smokescreen to mislead the Turks in December 1915. Anzac soldiers played a match to disguise the evacuation of British positions

— The end of the Second World War in Europe was celebrated 13 days after VE Day with a series of “Victory Tests” between the English national side and an Australian Services XI. The Australians had been fighting days before, and one had spent the last four years in a PoW camp, yet they managed a 2-2 draw

Sources: www.national-army-museum.ac.uk, www.anzacsite.gov.au, www.cricinfo.com, www.aafla.org

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