Many of the coldest winters in the UK over the last 100 or more years
have coincided with an England cricket tour of Australia:

1894-5
1928-9
1946-7
1962-3
1978-9
(2010-1)

An Ashes tour doesn't guarantee a hard winter, as many coincided with
mild or average winters. But ignoring the war winters of 1916-7 and
1939-40, the five completed winters listed above are the coldest five in
the record from 1894-5 onwards.
--
John Hall
"I look upon it, that he who does not mind his belly,
will hardly mind anything else."
Dr Samuel Johnson (1709-84)