The series was played at five venues across Australia, starting on 14 November 1986 in Brisbane and concluding on 15 January 1987 in Sydney.

England, under the leadership of Mike Gatting, successfully retained the Ashes after winning the Boxing Day Test match in Melbourne.

England again batted first and racked up a large total, Chris Broad and Jack Richards both making maiden test centuries and Bill Athey falling only four runs short.

But this time Australia did manage to avoid the follow-on, narrowly, largely thanks to runs from Allan Border, and the game petered out into a draw.

[citation needed] Chris Broad became the third English batsman, after Jack Hobbs and Wally Hammond, to score hundreds in three consecutive Ashes Tests.

[citation needed] When the team for the Test was announced, the Australian selectors had included the name of Peter Taylor from NSW.

Although history shows that Mark Taylor had a substantial Test career later on, the selectors had made no mistake in the name.

NSW off-spinner Peter Taylor had impressed some selectors (especially Greg Chappell) with his all-round abilities during the previous season's Sheffield Shield final.

England recovered somewhat through the strokeplay of Gower and an unexpected 69 from John Emburey (who kept falling over when playing the sweep shot).

[citation needed] But it was debutant Peter Taylor taking 6/78 off 26 overs that ran through the middle order, including the dangerous Ian Botham.

Waugh, still potentially "the next big thing"[citation needed] and in front of his home crowd, was an attractive stroke-maker while Taylor, on the other hand, had little natural strokeplay but relied upon his concentration.