The Ultimate Test: Remembering England's Ashes win at Edgbaston in 2005

Among Cook’s team-mates then was Andy Flower, the future England coach alongside whom he would end up winning three Ashes series.

“We were warming up,” recalled Cook. “The crowd were watching it in the ground and when that final wicket went down there was a big cheer. It was just one of the great summers of cricket. It would be a fantastic anniversary of those 10 years to win here after losing at Lord’s.”

After their 405-run defeat at Lord’s 11 days ago, Cook’s England side would, no doubt, be grateful to receive the kind of fortune that helped their 2005 predecessors win here.

Then, England had also arrived in Birmingham after a heavy loss at the home of cricket, Vaughan’s men going down to a 239-run defeat.

Unlike the current team, who head into this Third Test all square at 1-1 after winning the series opener in Cardiff, Vaughan’s men were 1-0 down.

But they got lucky on the first morning when Glenn McGrath, the leading seam bowler in Test history, was ruled out of the match after sustaining a freak ankle injury after treading on a stray cricket ball during a game of touch rugby. “I was throwing a rugby ball back and forth and got a bad pass which skidded past me,” recalled McGrath. “I turned to pick it up and down I went. I didn’t see the ball, I just remember feeling it, hitting the ground and lying there thinking how I wanted to reverse what had just happened. The boys told me I went white. I knew I was injured straight away.”

Vaughan said: “We were delighted. We’d played that badly at Lord’s, we were just trying to focus on being more aggressive and positive with the bat. We’d been a bit timid at Lord’s and allowed Glenn and the boys to bowl too much to us. So we’d decided to be ultra-aggressive that week. We still looked at their attack and thought it was pretty good.”

Vaughan’s team were just that after Australia captain Ricky Ponting won the toss and chose to bowl, despite the loss of McGrath.

England set up victory by making 407 on the first day and the match ended memorably with Steve Harmison taking the wicket of Michael Kasprowicz, McGrath’s replacement, on a nerve-shredding final morning.

“It was an amazing game,” added McGrath. “If we had managed to get those last three runs, the series would have been dead. So it was amazing for the series. But to be sitting there and not being able to have any input into what was happening was pretty tough.”

With McGrath on the treatment table, Andrew Flintoff took the game by the scruff of the neck, scoring 68 and 73 with the bat before bowling one of the great overs in Test history on the third evening, when his mastery of reverse swing accounted for the scalps of Justin Langer and Ponting.

“That was when Flintoff arrived as a bowler,” said Vaughan. “I knew for a while he was a remarkable bowler when he clicked.

“That one over — for what it meant to the team getting us back in the series — I’d say it’s the best that I’ve ever witnessed.”

This year, there is again a chance for someone to write their name into Ashes folklore in Birmingham.

And who knows? Ten years from know, their image might even be emblazoned along the Edgbaston Road.