Australia to tour Western Front battlefields

Steve Waugh and the 2001 Aussies in the Gallipoli trenches © Getty Images

In 2001, Steve Waugh took his Ashes squad on a detour to Gallipoli, where they made an emotional pilgrimage to the place where 9000 Anzac soldiers died in an ill-fated First World War campaign. This year, Ricky Ponting's men will stop off in Northern France to visit the battlefields of the Western Front.

Although Gallipoli is synonymous with the Australian contribution to the First World War, there were four times as many men killed in France and Belgium. According to a report in The Daily Telegraph, the Australian squad will be based in Lille, from where they will visit the Australian Memorial Park at Fromelles and the town of Villers-Bretonneux, where Australian troops halted the German spring offensive in 1918.

"People say we're heroes and put us on a bit of a pedestal," said Waugh during the 2001 trip to Gallipoli, "but realistically there are so many people who deserve more accolades than us. The soldiers who fought here are the heroes. We just go out and play sport and we're good at it."