Cricket – The Ashes
The Ashes is known to be the Test cricket series that displays the most celebrated rivalry in the international cricket between England and Australia, this event dating back in 1882.
This series is played two times a year being played in UK and Australia taking turns. Cricket is a summer sport and in this way the series is alternating between 18 and 30 months. The Ashes consists of 5 Test matches, 2 innings per game, regulated by rules of international Test-match cricket.
the name is quite strange one might add, but you need to know that it is actually coming from a satirical obituary that used to be published in The Sporting Times, a British newspaper of 1882 when Australia beat England on the UK’s ground for the first time. The obituary was meant to mock the event saying that English cricket died and as such it will be cremated with its ashes carried to Australia. The next English tour that was held in Australia was meant to be the quest to regain the ashes.
In that tour the England’s captain was presented a small terracotta urn by a group of Melbourne women which urn was reported to contain the ash of a cricket item something to belong to the equipment. This is why many the cricket fans believe that the trophy of The Ashes series is this urn, but Bligh, the captain at that time just took it a gift presented to himself.
The urn has been replicated several times and it is in the possession of the victorious teams to symbolize their winning in The Ashes series. But regardless of all these replicas, the original urn can be seen nowadays in the Marylebone Cricket Club Museum when it was donated by Bligh’s widow.
Since the series of 1998 – 1999 Ashes, a representation of of the Ashes urn made of Waterford Crystal was handed over to the winners as the official trophy of that specific series. The fact is that a team must win a whole series to have the right to possess the Ashes. The results of drawn series for instance bring in the center of attention the previous holders who have retained the Ashes.
Meanwhile its inauguration the series have been played 64 times Australia winning 31, while England 28. The rest of the 5 series were drawn to establish that Australia had the Ashes for 4 times while England only 1 time. As such the win:loss ratio displayed by Ashes Tests reveals 121 winning for Australia to 95 wins fro UK, 84 being draws.
The series have been played over 5 Test matches though 4-match series and 6-match series have been performed. Australians had 10 wickets in a match on 41 occasions while Englishmen 38.
