It also marked a turning point in the history of the Australian cricket team, which had struggled to come to terms with the impact of World Series Cricket throughout the 1980s, and was at an all-time low. The 1989 Ashes series sparked a rejuvenation of Australian cricket, which would see them rise to replace the West Indies as the world's predominant Test cricket team by the mid-1990s, and break the record for consecutive test match victories by the end of that decade.