Not only will the lucky winner be the proud owner of this priceless piece of memorabilia, but they’ll also receive a copy of Swanny’s DVD signed by England’s spin king himself.

We’ve got loads more signed copies to give away to runners-up, and all you have to do to enter the draw for this fantastic prize is answer this simple question:

*THIS COMPETITION HAS NOW CLOSED*

What was the name of England’s celebration dance during the 2010/11 Ashes?

(A) The Running Man
(B) The Sprinkler
(C) The Paso Doble

Email your answers to comps@alloutcricket.com with the subject title ‘Ashes Bat’. Competition closing date is December 10.

Check out the December issue of All Out Cricket – in shops on November 3 – for our review of Swanny In A Spin and click here to order your copy on Amazon.

Unsurprisingly, the former England paceman had so many to choose from that several particularly memorable moments in his glittering career didn’t make the cut. Rather than consign them to the cutting room floor, we decided to share the near misses with you. And remember to check out the magazine for the best of the best, as chosen by Goughie…

The County Debut

3-44 & 2-47 | Middlesex v Yorkshire, County Championship, Lord’s, 1989
I put myself on the map. I was a podgy little 17-year-old, I’d hardly played any cricket. I made my debut, swung the ball and got Gatt (Mike Gatting) out. I got five wickets on my debut. At the time it didn’t really mean that much because I didn’t really understand it. Football and Barnsley Football Club was always my love. I’d never even been to a first-class cricket match until I played.

International Colours

3-93 & 2-51| Australia Young Cricketers v England Young Cricketers, North Sydney Oval, 1989/90
Although inconsistent, I used to swing the ball lots in those days. The first morning of the first Test in Sydney I bowled beautifully, swinging the ball both ways, and that gave me confidence about playing internationally. You’d just represented your country, and only a couple of years earlier I couldn’t get in the county schools side. So it was a stepping stone, and I was playing against the likes of Justin Langer, Damien Martyn, Michael Slater on that tour.

The A Tour

29 wickets | England A in South Africa, 1993/94
I was bottom of the pile on that tour. We had Mark Ilott, Martin McCague, who had all played for England, Dominic Cork and me. I was the young pick, the gamble, but I ended up top wicket-taker on the tour. I knew I was close to going on the West Indies tour that winter – they told me I was a reserve. I went out there on pre-season with Yorkshire and bowled at the England players in the nets, and they were impressed, I could tell. They got hammered there, so I knew when they came back, if I started the season well, I’d have a real chance of getting selected for England.

The First Ashes Wicket

4-107, 17* & 2-78 | Australia v England, First Test, Brisbane, 1994/95
My first overseas tour. Through my Test career I always looked down the opposition team and picked out one player I wanted to get out that game, and it was David Boon in that first Test. I’d always watched him on television. I bowled him, and if you look back you can see the delight on my face when I got that wicket, it was just pure joy. I got six wickets in the match. It was a big moment for me, first Test against Australia, I had to put the marker down: the way I was going to play against them my whole career.

The Back-To-Back Series Wins

3-82 & 3-30 | Pakistan v England, Third Test, Karachi, 2000
We beat Pakistan in the dark when I don’t think they’d been beaten in Karachi for years. We had a great team spirit and a great team in 2000/01 – that was a top England team – and this was a turning point when England started performing after that tour. The belief in everyone went through the roof, beating Pakistan then Sri Lanka, when everybody said we’d no chance of winning over there. I’d been Man of the Series at home against West Indies, and then against Sri Lanka: I was in my prime. Then unfortunately I got struck down by knee injury at the peak of my career. It’s basically like Jimmy Anderson going down and ending his career now.

The Injury

2-42 | New Zealand v England, Fifth ODI, Dunedin, 2002
I had such a terrific one-day series against New Zealand and I was going home after this game, but unfortunately I felt my knee. I bowled the rest of that over and got a wicket, and I came off and just collapsed. I knew something was wrong. I woke up the next morning and I had to be carried out of bed. I flew home and proceeded to have four operations in 14 months, which was pathetic really, ridiculous when I look back now. I should have just had one and done the right rehab. If we’d have had the same medical team we have now, and the same care that goes in now, I probably would have been fit again in six months, rather than trying to get back in six weeks.

The Ashes Prelude

3-16 | England v Australia, Only T20 international, The Rose Bowl, 2005
We beat them with pure aggression. I was on a hat-trick ball, and we didn’t go for the hat-trick, we went for him (Andrew Symonds). I think in years gone by I would have gone for that hat-trick, but Michael Vaughan came and had a quick chat with me and said: “Bounce him.” And so I did. It surprised him, it hit him, and my reaction and everybody else’s reaction… we tore into him. And it’s probably something we wouldn’t have done a few years earlier.

The End Of The Road

2-52 | Yorkshire v Somerset, County Championship, Scarborough, 2008
My knee was playing up. I was flying to Germany to have injections, and I just thought it was time to call it a day. But I wanted to go out on a bang. I always said I wanted to finish like the day I started, and Justin Langer said it was probably the quickest he ever faced off me in all his career. I look back now and I say I’m glad I finished on that day; I bowled rapid, and my last wicket was an Australian. It had to be. I didn’t tell anyone it was my last game, no fanfare, I just walked off and walked away.

To read Goughie’s top 10 definitive performances, check out All Out Cricket issue 86, in shops on November 3. You know it makes sense…

1) Day Three v Pakistan, Lord’s, August 28, 2010

The final Test of last summer will be remembered for all the wrong reasons and it is unfortunate that the spot fixing controversy will overshadow a superb rearguard partnership of 332 for the eighth wicket between Jonathan Trott and Stuart Broad. Having rescued the hosts from 102-7 to take them to 346-7 on day two, the bowlers took charge after Trott and Broad added a further 100 runs the next morning to skittle Pakistan for 74. By close England had reduced the tourists to 41-4 in the second dig and they went to claim an innings victory to complete a remarkable turnaround.

2) Day Five v Australia, Brisbane, November 29, 2010

England looked in deep trouble in the opening match of the Ashes after conceding a first innings deficit of 221 but a historic partnership between Alastair Cook and Jonathan Trott ensured that it was Australia feeling the pain at stumps on day five, even if the scorecard read a draw. The England duo put on a record stand at the Gabba, adding 208 runs without the fall of a wicket on the final day in a cavernous stadium bereft of Australian supporters, leaving Mitchell Johnson and co to feel the full force of the Barmy Army. It set the tone for the rest of the series as England romped to an innings victory a week later in Adelaide.

3) Day One v Australia, Melbourne, December 26, 2010

The Aussies had their backs up going into the fourth Test of the Ashes having pulverised England on a bouncy deck at Perth but the tourists had effectively sealed the retention of the urn by teatime in one of the most one-sided days of Test cricket in living memory. Andrew Strauss initially took some stick for opting to field but was vindicated by his trio of pacemen, as Anderson, Tremlett and Bresnan tore through Australia to condemn them to their second lowest total at the MCG of 98. Strauss and Cook rammed home the most comprehensive of Boxing Day beatings to reach 157-0 at stumps and leave home fans choking on their turkey sandwiches.

4) Day Five v Sri Lanka, Cardiff, May 30, 2011

England’s bowlers lit up the gloomiest of Cardiff days to claim an incredible smash and grab win when a draw looked an inevitability going into the final day. Sri Lanka headed into the tea break at 33-2 with no more than a smattering of fans bothering to watch the closing exchanges of a dour encounter but, amazingly, 12.4 overs later the match was over as the tourists did a very passable impression of a pack of cards and collapsed in stunning fashion. Chris Tremlett and Graeme Swann were the chief tormentors with four wickets apiece before Stuart Broad bagged the final couple to steal a win that would ultimately prove decisive in the series.

5) Day Three v India, Edgbaston, August 12, 2011

And finally, to day three at Edgbaston. MS Dhoni and his side must have thought they had hit rock bottom after their humiliating defeat at Trent Bridge but things have gone from bad to worse in Birmingham. Having already established a lead of 232 by stumps on day two, Alastair Cook and Eoin Morgan showed no mercy with a stand of 222 as the hosts pushed past the 700 mark on day three, achieving the highest ever Test score at Edgbaston. England finally declared on 710-7 when Cook fell six short of his triple century but that just gave them time to pile on more misery as Virender Sehwag – supposedly India’s saviour after their travails so far on this tour – fell first ball to become the third Indian in the history of the game to collect a king pair. A day to forget for India, but yet another day that will live long in the memory for the world’s best Test side in waiting.

Headingley, 1981. A fevered nation, struggling under the weight of recession, looked on as the beleaguered national cricket team slumped unhappily and inevitably to another defeat at the hands of the old enemy.

Following on after conceding a first innings deficit of 227, England fell to 135-7 on the fourth afternoon. With three wickets remaining they needed another 92 just to make Australia bat again. During a break in the play, the electronic scoreboard flashed up with some odds from Ladbrokes: 500-1 for an England win. Fair enough, most thought; still not worth a punt. It ought to have been 900-1. But then everything changed.

Ian Botham was joined at the crease by hulking fast bowler Graham Dilley and the pair agreed, in Botham’s words, to “give it some humpty”. Botham had resigned the captaincy of the team at the end of the previous Test at Lord’s after a winless 12-match tenure, which had seen his form drop alarmingly.

With silver-haired psychoanalyst Mike Brearley restored as captain, the talismanic allrounder appeared to be playing with greater freedom at Leeds: six wickets followed by a fifty in the first innings – a welcome contrast to Lord’s where he’d made a pair and been greeted silently by the members as he walked off.

Now, there was nothing to lose. England had checked out of their hotel – not expecting to take the contest to a fifth day – and Botham and Dilley decided to have a swing. As Botham tells it: “The game was as good as over by the time I went out to bat at 105-5 following on, so I just said ‘I’m going to enjoy myself’.”

He did just that, carving the Australian attack to all corners of Headingley in a display of joyous, uninhibited strokeplay. As Bob Willis later put it: “He just went out and slogged.” They were still certain of victory but Australia’s bowlers were infuriated. Beneath the surface, the touring party was not a happy camp with grand old beasts Dennis Lillee and Rod Marsh less than enamoured with the appointment of ‘golden boy’ Kim Hughes as skipper.

Lillee would spend net sessions tearing in and bowling bouncer after bouncer at Hughes. And at Headingley that day, for whatever reason, they didn’t quite get things right; allowing Beefy to smash them through the offside time and time again. Balls flew over the slips and just out of the reach of fielders and, as Brearley says, the pair “could have been out at any moment.” But while Australia were frustrated, England were enjoying themselves. As Christopher Martin-Jenkins said of Botham and Dilley at the time, as they bludgeoned their way to a partnership of 117, “If they haven’t quite turned the match upside down, then they’ve certainly turned the character of the match upside down.”

What started as a bit of fun gradually became more serious. Ably supported by Dilley, who made a career-best 56 with some fantastic hits of his own, then Chris Old and finally No.11 Bob Willis, Botham smashed 149 not out in 148 balls to leave Australia needing 130 to win.

It was still improbable and at 56-1 Australia looked home and hosed before the intervention of Bob Willis – a fast bowler struggling for form and fitness to such a degree that he was originally not selected for the match. At a barbeque on the rest day of the match, with his side staring down the barrel, Willis admitted he “felt sure that I wouldn’t pull on an England sweater again.”

Fatefully switched by Brearley to the Kirkstall Lane End to bowl down the hill, Willis then took three wickets without conceding a run in 11 balls, including two in the last over before lunch on the fifth day. Australia went in at 58-4 and England now knew they had a sniff on a wicket that was offering some real spice. As Willis says: “After I picked up three quick wickets we could feel the pressure shifting from us to them. And, of course, there is no greater motivation than seeing your international career hanging by a thread.”

Now in a scary trance – his “cocoon of concentration” – Willis was bowling like a man possessed, his enormous hair bouncing wildly as he charged in, barely stopping to celebrate wickets or talk to his teammates. Getting the ball to rear up from back of a length, he steadily made breakthroughs, until Denis Lillee came in and threatened to turn the game on its head once again.

England had been face down on the canvas for such long periods, before becoming favourites, only to see Australia get within 20 runs of victory with two wickets in hand. This was real drama.

Willis adjusted his length and Lillee spooned a catch up to Mike Gatting, who dived forward, as Willis tells it, “thinking it was a bread roll”, to grab it at mid on. Botham could have finished things off, but in another twist, had two catches dropped in consecutive balls by Chris Old at third slip.

That fittingly left it to Willis to remove the middle stump of Ray Bright, recording the now folklore figures of 8-43, to secure one of the most remarkable victories in England’s long sporting history.

It was 1-1. England, Botham, Willis had come back from the dead. They would go on to win the series that would become known as ‘Botham’s Ashes’ and in the process attract generations of cricket-lovers. The legend of those few scarcely believable days in Leeds is still very much alive 30 years on.