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Event
Information:
The
Ashes is a Test cricket series
played between England and
Australia. It is one of
international cricket's most
celebrated rivalries and dates back
to 1882. It is currently played
biennially, alternately in the
United Kingdom and Australia.
Cricket being a summer sport, and
the venues being in opposite
hemispheres, the break between
series alternates between 18 and 30
months. A series of "The Ashes"
comprises five Test matches, two
innings per match, under the regular
rules for Test match cricket. If a
series is drawn then the country
already holding the Ashes retains
them.
The
series is named after a satirical
obituary published in a British
newspaper, The Sporting Times, in
1882 after a match at The Oval in
which Australia beat England on an
English ground for the first time.
The obituary stated that English
cricket had died, and the body will
be cremated and the ashes taken to
Australia. The English media dubbed
the next English tour to Australia
(1882–83) as the quest to regain The
Ashes.
During
that tour a small terracotta urn was
presented to England captain Ivo
Bligh by a group of Melbourne women.
The contents of the urn are reputed
to be the ashes of an item of
cricket equipment, possibly a bail,
ball or stump. The Dowager Countess
of Darnley claimed recently[when?]
that her mother-in-law, Bligh's wife
Florence Morphy, said that they were
the remains of a lady's veil.
The
urn is erroneously believed by some
to be the trophy of the Ashes
series, but it has never been
formally adopted as such and Bligh
always considered it to be a
personal gift. Replicas of the urn
are often held aloft by victorious
teams as a symbol of their victory
in an Ashes series, but the actual
urn has never been presented or
displayed as a trophy in this way.
Whichever side holds the Ashes, the
urn normally remains in the
Marylebone Cricket Club Museum at
Lord's since being presented to the
MCC by Bligh's widow upon his death
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