April 6, 2005 was the day when former Australian batter Kate Blackwell was given a clue that young English fast bowler Katherine Brunt would be a key player in that year's Ashes series.
The previous day, Australia had ended England's World Cup campaign in the semi-final in Potchefstroom, South Africa.
"The very next morning as I was doing a quiet wander around the grounds at the accommodation, there she was, Katherine Brunt, doing laps of the oval," Blackwell told ABC Sport.
"She's out of the World Cup but she's there running laps, putting in the hours and the hard yards to keep herself fit, getting herself ready for the next series which was going to be the Ashes later in the year and I was like 'oh my goodness, we need to look out for this one, she's going to be fiery and ready to go'."
Ashes rookies make an impact
Wagga Wagga-born Blackwell was a star-struck 21-year-old when she made her Test debut in the Ashes series opener at Hove.
"I had an amazing team around me," Blackwell said.
"The batting line-up, Belinda Clark, Lisa Keightley, Karen Rolton, Lisa Sthalekar, my sister Alex and our bowling attack with Cathryn Fitzpatrick, Emma Liddell, Julie Hayes, Shelley Nitschke and our keeper Julia Price.
Female cricket idols were nowhere to be seen for Brunt when she first took up the sport.
"I grew up playing with my brother, playing boys and men's cricket, I didn't really have any knowledge at all of women's cricket at that standard," Brunt told '2005 – The forgotten Ashes' podcast.
Having recently turned 20, Brunt didn't carry the baggage of past Ashes losses into the 2005 series.
England sees double
Kate Blackwell and her sister made history at the 2005 Ashes, becoming the first set of identical twins – male or female – to play Test cricket.
"It was wonderful putting the baggy green on alongside Alex," Blackwell said.
"We loved batting together, we thought if we got to bat together, let's make the most of it.
"Alex and I were featuring very close under the helmet in the short catching positions and it was almost like the stereo effect in terms of the banter that we would generate for the batter."
The 2005 Ashes tour doubled as a family reunion for the Blackwells.
"It was a really nice and memorable time with our grandfather [an Englishman] able to watch us play cricket for our country, we had our aunt and uncle and cousins around and our parents travelled to England for a very special series," Kate Blackwell said.
Australia's aura
Australia hadn't been beaten in a Test since 1984 and its last series loss to England was in 1963. Clark's team had won the 2005 World Cup and exuded confidence, unlike the English team.
In the first Test in Hove, an unbeaten century from Arran Brindle helped England hold on for a draw, with Australia only three wickets away from victory.
"We knew after that Test match that the next one, there would be nothing that we couldn't do because that one was so hard and so challenging that we knew what to expect next time around," Brunt said.
Brunt brilliant as Aussies crumble
After rain delayed the start of play in the second and final Test in Worcester, England exploited bowler-friendly conditions. Brunt took five wickets as Australia was dismissed for 131.
"There weren't thousands of people in the crowd and people on social media ripping you in half.
"Without those distractions it was more like you were just being young and having fun with your mates."
Brunt also starred with the bat, making an unlikely 52 at number 10 and combining with Isa Guha in a last wicket partnership of 85 runs.
"Getting to bat with Isa, she's one of my best mates now, us two who at the time people thought couldn't bat whatsoever," Brunt said.
A fearsome spell from pace bowler Fitzpatrick tested out Brunt's fighting qualities.
"She came at it really hard, she hit me a few times," Brunt said.
"Somebody coming down bowling 80 miles per hour, you know is terrifying, especially for me, just coming into the squad, I was like 'who is this woman trying to kill me?'"
When Brunt departed, England had a first innings lead of 158 runs.
Blackwell blunts English attack
Australia made a disastrous start to its second innings.
Keightley, captain Clark and Sthalekar all fell cheaply. Kate Blackwell strode to the crease with her team 3 for 7 and the Ashes slipping away.
"I just thought 'all I'm going to do is try and be here at the crease' and I had to force myself to dead-bat the ball, just block it and not even try to score," Blackwell said.
"I did that for many balls and I was realising how boring this was appearing, but I was still enjoying being out in the middle for Australia.
"Every now and then I just decided I'm going to go for it and out of the blue would be this big shot.
"The English players were sledging me saying 'wait on, the T20 game's on in a few days.'
Blackwell produced a determined innings that lasted more than five hours and the right-handed batter combined with Nitschke in a 110-run partnership.
Australia's resistance ends
Early on the fourth and final day, Blackwell's hopes of saving Australia were dashed by the irrepressible Brunt.
"She would've been thinking long and hard overnight about how to get us out, she obviously came up with a very good plan and I hadn't thought about it," Blackwell said.
"I hadn't thought that I'd have to do something different the next day and I got out very early and I was just devastated.
Brunt's four wickets gave her nine for the match.
"She had a lot of fire in her belly and was such a great competitor," Blackwell said.
Nitschke made a career best 88 not out but with Australia all out for 232, England needed only 75 runs for victory. That seemed like a tricky target when the home team was 2 for 1. Captain Clare Connor and Charlotte Edwards steadied the innings before falling in quick succession to the fired-up Fitzpatrick, leaving England wobbling at 4 for 39.
Celebration and devastation
Brindle and Lydia Greenway safely steered England to a six-wicket victory and a series win over the old enemy that was 42 years in the making. Regaining the Ashes was an emotional experience for the senior members in the England team.
"There were tears and they were so happy about having achieved something that big and me trying to figure out what that meant was strange, but I loved it and went with it and it was just a great feeling," Brunt said.
For Blackwell, it felt like the Ashes was gone in the blink of an eye.
"It was a devastating Test match, knowing that we should've won the first match," she said.
"It made me think 'there's so much riding on just these two Test matches, we lost one match and we lose the whole Ashes'.
"The [current] multi-format series, I feel like that creates a better competition and it means that if you do happen to lose a Test match or draw it, you can still fight to actually win the Ashes through the ODIs and the T20s."
Feeling 'shunned'
At the same time an enthralling men's Ashes series was also being held in England.
Two weeks after the women's triumph, the England men's team regained the Ashes for the first time since 1989.
"We love what the men do and the way they play and the fact that they won something as equally as special as us was awesome, but it was just so rubbish to be completely forgotten.
"The way it was publicised and the media attention, it was like what we did hadn't happened.
"These days when we look back on some great achievements, we always look back at the men's Ashes don't we.
"You never ever hear anything about the women's Test match victory, it's completely forgotten, but not by us," Brunt told '2005 – The forgotten Ashes' podcast.
Sharing the spoils
Tens of thousands of Londoners turned out to see the England men's and women's teams paraded on double decker buses on a 90-minute journey to Trafalgar Square.
"They put us on the bus behind them with their wives, so I don't think anybody knew who we were on the other bus," Brunt said.
"But they knew who we were when we got on stage and were announced beside [the men] and that was awesome.
"You need these kinds of special moments to create talk and to get people interested."
Blackwell said the success of the England women's team meant they could no longer be ignored.
"The men's win absolutely overshadowed the women but possibly that was the start of the ECB paying more attention to the women's team and their success."
Back to business, but with a purpose
For Brunt, starring in an Ashes victory didn't mean she was being stopped in the street for autographs.
"I went straight back to three jobs," she said.
"I didn't suddenly become famous; I was still completely unknown.
"I didn't receive sponsorships from here, there and everywhere … but [I was] just loving life.
More coverage, more respect
Nearly 16 years later, Brunt is the only player from the 2005 Ashes series who is still representing her country. She says many were unable to stay in the game because full-time contracts were not offered until 2014.
"It's because of the money, plain and simple, not so much now, but people would've had to have made a hell of a lot of sacrifices," Brunt said.
The Barnsley-born speedster said her team has started to get more respect in the past five years.
"These days we look back at the men's World Cup victory and we look back at ours as well because it did happen in the new era and that's how the game's changed, it's great," Brunt said.
Brunt believes the 2005 Ashes win assisted the women's game in moving forward, but says an accumulation of other performances would have also helped.
"Whatever happened definitely took some time to happen, I'd say it happened very gradually over the next five years.
"In 2009 we won everything that you could possibly win and still didn't win an award for it.
"We kept making those special things happen, year on year, basically hammering down the door to the media saying, 'you literally cannot ignore us'.
Brunt said the women's Ashes deserves the same level of coverage as the men's series.
"It won't be in my day but there will come a day," Brunt said.
"The 2020 T20 World Cup final at the MCG and Katy Perry, that was unreal and a sign of what we could achieve, but it's not consistent yet."
Aussies finish with a flurry
Rather than being downcast about losing the 2005 Ashes, Australia finished the tour in style with victory in the ODI series and a win in the team's historic first T20 international.
"It probably gave us that fire in the belly," Blackwell said.
Kate Blackwell has mixed feelings when looking back on the second Test in the 2005 Ashes.
'My last really sweet moment'
Brunt has been a member of England's T20 and ODI World Cup winning teams and has taken more than 300 international wickets but said it's hard to top the 2005 Ashes triumph.
"You get nine wickets in a Test and a maiden 50 and there's going to be a hell of a lot of expectation from that moment on.
"It was my last really sweet moment of just being completely free and playing with enjoyment and absolutely nothing else.
