Lillywhite, Shaw and Shrewsbury led England's touring party to Australia for the third time in the 1886 - 1887 trip. Only eleven players were taken this time, the majority coming from Notts.

Percy McDonnell, captaining Australia for the first time put England in to bat (the first time for a captain to ask the opposition to bat first). The result was catastrophic for England who were bowled out for 45 runs, and to this day remains their lowest ever Test score. Australia had found two new bowlers, namely Ferris and Turner, the only bowlers used in the first innings, taking 5 wickets each. Australia crawled to 119, a lead of only 74 runs. England made a good start, eating up the runs with the loss of only 1 wicket. However they then lost the next 6 wickets for only 23 runs, but thanks to a wagg in the tail they were eventually bowled out for 184, a lead of 110. It should not have been enough, but thanks to Barnes (6 - 28) they fell short by 13 runs. The Australian captain's decision to field backfired and England won the first game.

Barnes and McDonnell (Aus Captain) came to blows after the match and when Barnes attempted to hit the Australian skipper in the face, missed and hit a brick wall instead, putting him out of the rest of the tour!! Charles Bannerman, who played in the first test match umpired for the first time in a match that his brother, was playing in.

Because England only brought 11 players on tour, they found themselves short of a full complement and were left with only one choice. Reg Wood, who was from Cheshire, now living in Australia and working on the Melbourne ground was asked to play, in what turned out to be his only test match! England scored 151 runs in the first innings, once again turner and ferris shared the wickets. Lohmann in reply more or less bowled Australia out (84) by taking 8 - 35 (the best bowling figures to date). England retained the ashes with a 71 run victory after bowling Australia out for 150 runs (while chasing 222). Wood scored 6 in both innings. One interesting fact to come out of the two match series was that the two new bowlers from Australia took 35 of the 40 wickets to fall!

Additional Information :- (cricinfo)

The England team represented the cream of professional talent playing in the country at that time. Six of the players were from Nottinghamshire, the county of the organisers, Alfred Shaw and Arthur Shrewsbury. Shrewsbury later committed suicide, but in his day was the leading opening batsman in the country. Both Midwinter and Ferris played for both England and Australia (Midwinter played for England in the early 1880s, Ferris played for Gloucestershire in the 1890s and was picked for an English tour to South Africa in 1895/6 (?)). Ferris and Turner came to England with the Australian touring team of 1888, and broke numerous bowling records. Turner took over 200 wickets in the season. He is also the only bowler ever to have taken 100 wickets in an Australian domestic season (1887/8).