The Ashes

What are “The Ashes” ?

Well as every cricket fan will know, especially those from England & Australia, The Ashes is a test series dating back to 1882. It is played every other year during the Summer months of the respective countrys and as England and Australia are geographically in opposite hemispheres it means the series are played approximately 18 to 30 months apart.

The name “The Ashes” originates from a match at The Oval when Australia beat England for the first time on English soil and The Sporting Times printed an article stating that English cricket had died and the body would be cremated and taken to Australia. When the next series was due to take place in Australia the English press stated that England were trying to regain “The Ashes”. During that series a small urn was presented to the England team and was reputed to hold the ashes of a cricketing item, possibly a bail although there have been many different claims as to the orign of the ashes in the urn. However it took many years before the series became known as “The Ashes” and consequently “the trophy” was not given to the winners each time. It remained with the captain, Ivo Bligh, to whom it was presented and now the urn normally resides in the musem at the MCC (Marylebone Cricket Club) to whom it was presented by Ivo Bligh’s widow when he died.

There has been recent calls in the press for the urn to be physically presented to the winners and taken to Australia if they win the series, and for the last 10 years a crystal representation of the urn has been presented as an official trophy of the series.

In recent times, the 2005 series held in England has been rated one of the most exciting of all time with England coming out on top by winning two matches, drawing two and loosing one. The second match, England won by 2 runs, the smallest ever runs margin in Ashes history. For those of us in England at the time we won’t forget the scenes of victory and the open top bus parade through London and especially Freddie Flintoff as he appeared to have slightly “overdone” the celebrations! although he can be forgiven as he scored over 400 runs and took 24 wickets.

The next series in Australia in 2006/07 was a disaster for England as they were whitewashed 5-0, the first time that had happened since 1920. Flintoff again hit the headlines for his off the field antics reportedly in a pedlo ! Ricky Ponting was the star batsman for Australia scoring 576 runs, and with the ball, Stuart Clark, Shane Warne and Glen McGrath all took over 20 wickets.

In 2009 the series will again be played in England and for the first time a match will be played at Sophia Gardens in Wales. The other venues are Lords, Edgbaston, Headingly and the Oval.

Australia will be without some of their stars of recent years including that fantastic player Shane Warne and Glen McGrath so England will be hoping that they can again regain “The Ashes” by pulling of a series win on home soil.