What is The Ashes?
The Ashes is a Test cricket series which is played every two years between England and Australia, the venue alternating between the two countries. As cricket is a summer game and England and Australia are in opposite hemispheres, the time between each Ashes series varies between 18 and 30 months.
Dating back as far as 1877, England v Australia is the oldest continuous international cricket fixture. The first event took place in Melbourne and was won by the Australians by 45 runs.
How did The Ashes earn its name?
The origins of the unusual name for cricket's oldest international contest date back to 1882. Until this point, England had never been beaten on home soil, but led by WL Murdoch; the third Australian team to tour England achieved the unthinkable and the English lost by seven runs.
England’s first-ever loss on home ground was widely documented in the British press and the following is the first (and most famous) verse of a poem which appeared in Punch in September of that fateful year:
Well done, Cornstalks! Whipt us
Fair and square,
Was it luck that tript us?
Was it scare?
Kangaroo Land's 'Demon', or our own
Want of 'devil', coolness, nerve, backbone?
The competition’s unusual name stemmed from a spoof obituary written by Reginald Brooks which appeared in the Sporting Times in the same year. The article declared that English cricket had died and that the body was to be cremated and the ashes taken to Australia. It read as follows:
In Affectionate Remembrance of
ENGLISH CRICKET,
which died at the Oval
on
29th AUGUST, 1882,
Deeply lamented by a large circle of sorrowing
friends and acquaintances
R.I.P.
N.B. — the body will be cremated and the
Ashes taken to Australia.
When the next series took place, the media continued the metaphor, describing England’s tour to Australia as a mission to regain “The Ashes”.
Four years later, Pelham Warner led his team to Australia, promising that he would reclaim “the ashes”. The Australian media caught onto the term once again but this time it stuck as Warner and his team were successful in their quest and the England captain published a book entitled “How We Recovered The Ashes”.
The Urn
Since it was a number of years before the contest became widely known as The Ashes, it was not until much later that a representation of the ashes was given as a prize to the victorious team. In fact, even as late as 1925, the following verse appeared in The Cricketers Annual:
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So here’s to Chapman, Hendren and Hobbs,
Gilligan, Woolley and Hearne:
May they bring back to the Motherland,
The ashes which have no urn! |
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At various points over the years, there have been numerous efforts to represent The Ashes in a physical memorial such as one presented to Warner in 1904, another to Australian Captain, MA Noble, in 1909 and another to Australian Captain WM Woodfull in 1934.
The oldest and most celebrated however, is the urn which was presented to England captain, Ivo Bligh, during the 1882-83 tour. A group of women from Melbourne presented Bligh, who later became Lord Darnley, with a small terracotta urn. The urn supposedly contained the ashes of an item of cricket equipment such as a bail or stump but some Aborigines believe that the urn contained the ashes of King Cole, an Australian cricketer who toured England in 1868. More recently, the Dowager Countess of Darnley alleged that the urn’s contents were the remains of her late mother-in-law’s (and Bligh’s wife’s) veil, however, during the 2006/07 tour of Australia, it was announced that the veil legend had been discounted and that it was “95%” certain that the urn contained the ashes of a cricket bail.
The urn resides in the Marylebone Cricket Club Museum at Lord’s where it has been since it was presented to the Club by Bligh’s widow after his death. Many wrongly believe that it is the trophy of the Ashes series and so during the 1990s, owing to Australia’s long-running dominance of the series, it was argued that the urn should be presented to the winning team to keep until the next series. The MCC were hesitant to agree to this arrangement, because of the urn’s fragile condition.
Instead, the MCC decided to commission a Waterford crystal replica trophy which could be presented to the winning team as a symbol of their victory. This trophy was first presented to Mark Taylor after the Aussies were triumphant in the 1998-99 Test series. Since then, the trophy has been presented to the winning captain at the end of each Test series. Most recently, it was presented to Ricky Ponting after his Australian side's 5-0 victory over England in the 2006-07 Ashes series.
The Early years of The Ashes
Led by cricketing greats such as Arthur Shrewsbury and A.E. Stoddart, the English dominated the series during the early years, with the Australians holding the Ashes only once between 1883 and 1896. In 1896, England under the captaincy of W.G. Grace won the series 2-1, but this marked the end of what remains England's longest period of Ashes dominance to date. The 1897 series was a clear win for Australia by 4-1 under the captaincy of Harry Trot. His successor, Joe Darling helped Australia win the next three series in 1899, 1901-02 and the famous 1902 series.
After the First World War, Australia dominated the Ashes once more and for the first time, the tactic of using two express bowlers in tandem paid off as Jack Gregory and Ted McDonald repeatedly shattered the England batting. Between the end of the war and 1925, England won just one Test out of fifteen.
In the early 19030s, Australia had an extremely strong batting line-up with Bradman, Archie Jackson, Stan McCabe, Bill Woodfull and Bill Ponsford and faced with the prospect of bowling at this line-up, England Captain, Douglas Jardine was forced to come up with drastic new tactics for his team to defend themselves.
He told his fastest bowlers to bowl at the Australian batsmen’s bodies, in an attempt to force them to defend themselves with their bats, thereby providing easy catches to a stacked leg-side field. This new method was widely criticised by its opponents but Jardine defended his tactic, stating it was legitimate and decided to call it “leg theory” although his opponents dubbed it “bodyline” (from “on the line of the body”). As a result, England won the Ashes series but the Australians were not happy and so the MCC decided to ban the tactic from future cricket.
During the next Ashes series, in 1934, the absence of English cricketers Harold Larwood, Bill Voce and Douglas Jardine was noted. Despite initially welcoming the bodyline tactic, the MCC had decided that the players would not be allowed to play against Australia and placed all blame on Harold Larwood. Australia recovered the Ashes that year and held them until 1953, although no international cricket was possible during the Second World War.
The last 60 years of The Ashes
The Ashes resumed in 1946/47 after the Second World War with England losing 3-0 in Australia and in 1948, Australia again beat England 4-0, with one draw. The winning Australian team, led by Bradman, have gone down in cricketing history as The Invincibles, playing 36 matches on tour (including five Tests) and remaining unbeaten by winning 27 and drawing only 9.
The 1948 series ended with one of the most poignant moments in cricket history, as Bradman played his final innings for Australia in the Fifth Test at The Oval, needing to score only 4 runs to maintain a career batting average of 100. Eric Hollies bowled him second ball for a duck with a googly, giving him a career average of 99.94.
The 1950s were a memorable decade for England and in 1953 a fresh page was turned in the history of the Ashes as England’s luck took a turn for the better when they won the final Test at The Oval. This win kick-started a victorious period in English cricketing history, with strong players such as captain Len Hutton, Fred Trueman, Brian Statham, Alec Bedser, Jim Laker, Peter May, Tom Graveney, Godfrey Evans and Colin Cowdrey.
Three years later, off-spinner, Jim Laker, made history at Old Trafford when he bowled 68 of 191 overs to take 19 out of 20 Australian wickets. However, England’s time in the limelight was soon to be cut short when Australia won the 1958-59 series, 4-0, thanks to new skipper Richie Benaud. Australia then entered a period of Ashes dominance.
Throughout the1960s Australia held the Ashes, in a decade of fairly unexciting cricket but it was also during this time that England and Australia’s position in world cricket was seriously challenged for the first time, with the West Indies defeating England twice and South Africa outplaying Australia.
In 1977, Australia won the Centenary Test which was not an Ashes contest but then trouble began when Australian Kerry Packer announced plans to form World Series Cricket (WSC). WSC affected all Test playing nations but it was the Australians who were hit the hardest as most of their players had been signed up by Packer and a new Test team had to be selected by the Australian Cricket Board (ACB) who refused to select any WSC players. All of this turmoil coincided with the rise of nations such as the West Indies, who went on to record resounding Test series wins against Australia and England and dominated world cricket until the 1990s.
1981 brought along the immortal summer of Ian Botham. The 1981 Ashes series has gone down in cricketing legend as Botham's finest hour, but it started badly for the all-rounder. After Brearley’s retirement from cricket in 1979, Botham took over as England Captain for the 1981 Ashes Series but after Australia took a 1-0 lead in the first two Tests, Botham was forced to resign and Brearley was reappointed for the third Test at Headingley where England faced an innings defeat, but Botham's 149 not out, and Bob Willis's eight for 43 sealed an unlikely victory. Botham's bowling secured another triumph at Edgbaston, then a second innings 118 from 102 balls helped England win at Old Trafford for a 3-1 winning margin. England then went on to win the next two matches before drawing in the final at The Oval.
The years that followed were, on the whole, a successful time for England, despite Bob Willis’s side losing 2-1 in 1982/83 but the end of the 80s once again brought England’s downfall with a 4-0 loss to Allan Border’s team and the Australian’s began their cricketing peak of the 1990s and early 2000s.
Throughout the 90s, Australia won 16 out of the 27 matches played, with England winning a meagre five matches. Shane Warne, the Waugh twins, Glenn McGrath, Mark Taylor and Steve Waugh have all defeated a string of England sides, led by Graham Gooch, Michael Atherton, Alec Stewart and Nasser Hussain.
The first decade of the new millennium started out in a similar manner, with a strong Australian dominance. The Aussies won both a series in England and a series in Australia 4-1 under the captaincy of Steve Waugh but England slowly began to recover in the early 2000s and the 2005 Ashes series is widely acknowledged as the greatest contest between the two long-standing rivals, gripping the nation and the media in a way no other series had ever done before. After an initially poor start to the contest, a win in the final Test secured England’s first Ashes win since 1987 and the England team, captained by Michael Vaughan, became national heroes.
The Ashes today
Australia is the current holder of The Ashes, after beating England 5–0 in 2006-7 (only the second time that an Ashes series has been won by such a margin). Glenn McGrath, Shane Warne and Justin Langer retired from Test cricket after the series, after almost a decade of being a part of the Australian team. Damien Martyn also retired during the series.
The next Ashes series is to be held this summer in England with npower as the current sponsor. In November 2008, former England all-rounder Ian Botham voiced his belief that England will take an "easy" victory whilst from the Australian team, Shane Warne said he believed that England would be beaten 5-0 as per the previous series.
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“What I've seen so far, I don't see as too much of a threat and if England's bowlers stay fit then they'll win the series... I don't think they've got the bowlers - they're weak in the bowling attack and getting old... I predicted it in 2005 and I predict it again now.... It's never straightforward, but I think we'll dominate because we have the bowlers and that's the one thing Australia are lacking... They've got Brett Lee who's a terrific performer and after that there's no spinner, there's no McGrath out there.”
Ian Botham |
What does each series comprise of?
Each series of The Ashes is made up of five Test matches with two innings per match, played under the standard international Test-match rules. If a series is a draw, the country holding The Ashes from the previous series retains them.
The Ashes Venues
The Ashes series alternates between England and Australia, and within each country each of the five matches is held at a different cricket ground.
The current Australian grounds are:
· "The Gabba" in Brisbane (which first staged a Test in 1932/33).
· Adelaide Oval (1884–85),
· The WACA, Perth (1970–71)
· The Melbourne Cricket Ground (1876–77)
· The Sydney Cricket Ground (SCG) (1881–82)
Traditionally, Melbourne hosts the Boxing Day Test. Cricket Australia has proposed that the 2010–11 series consist of six Tests, with the additional game to be played at Bellerive Oval in Hobart. The England Cricket Board is yet to agree to this.
The current English grounds are:
Glamorgan Cricket Club in Cardiff is also set to hold the first, and its first, Test in the 2009 Ashes series.
Hospitality at The Ashes 2009
Fantastic hospitality packages are available through Keith Prowse for the 1st npower Test, which takes place Wednesday 8 – Sunday 12 July 2009 at Glamorgan Cricket Club in Cardiff – the first time the Ashes has been played in Wales.
Keith Prowse, in association with Lord’s Inspiring Occasions, offers official hospitality at Lord's, ‘The Home of Cricket’ with unrivalled facilities, providing the perfect arena for entertaining guests. Hospitality packages are available in the Captains’ Lounge, Nursery Pavilion, Indoor School, Danubius Hotel for the 2nd npower Test on Thursday 16 – Monday 20 July 2009.
The 3rd npower Test is scheduled to take place at Edgbaston, Thursday 30 July – Monday 3 August 2009. With our exclusive Moseley Suite hospitality package, you will be at the heart of the 2009 action.
Following redevelopment, Headingley in Leeds has become a world-class venue. The teams will head up North for the 4th npower Test, Friday 7 – Tuesday 11 August 2009.
The 5th and final Test takes place at The Brit Oval, Thursday 20 – Monday 24 August 2009. As official suppliers of hospitality at The Brit Oval, Keith Prowse offers the most prestigious hospitality facilities, with the best seats in the house. Our unrivalled hospitality packages in the OCS Stand and the Pavilion Stand are the perfect way to enjoy cricket on a glorious summer’s day.
Ashes History Timeline
1882: England 0-1 Australia
1882-83: Australia 1-2 England*
1884: England 1-0 Australia
1884-85: Australia 2-3 England
1886: England 3-0 Australia
1886-87: Australia 0-2 England
1887-88: Australia 0-1 England
1888: England 2-1 Australia
1890: England 2-0 Australia
1891-92: Australia 2-1 England
1893: England 1-0 Australia
1894-95: Australia 2-3 England
1896: England 2-1 Australia
1897-98: Australia 4-1 England
1899: England 0-1 Australia
1901-02: Australia 4-1 England
1903-04: Australia 2-3 England
1905: England 2-0 Australia
1907-08: Australia 4-1 England
1909: England 1-2 Australia
1911-12: Australia 1-4 England
1912: England 1-0 Australia
1920-21: Australia 5-0 England
1921: England 0-3 Australia
1924-25: Australia 4-1 England
1926: England 1-0 Australia
1928-29: Australia 1-4 England
1930: England 1-2 Australia
1932-33: Australia 1-4 England
1934: England 1-2 Australia
1936-37: Australia 3-2 England
1938: England 1-1 Australia
1946-47: Australia 3-0 England
1948: England 0-4 Australia
1950-51: Australia 4-1 England
1953: England 1-0 Australia
1954-55: Australia 1-3 England
1956: England 2-1 Australia
1958-59: Australia 4-0 England
1961: England 1-2 Australia
1962-63: Australia 1-1 England
1964: England 0-1 Australia
1965-66: Australia 1-1 England
1968: England 1-1 Australia
1970-71: Australia 0-2 England
1972: England 2-2 Australia
1974-75: Australia 4-1 England
1975: England 0-1 Australia
1977: England 3-0 Australia
1978-79: Australia 1-5 England
1981: England 3-1 Australia
1982-83: Australia 2-1 England
1985: England 3-1 Australia
1986-87: Australia 1-2 England
1989: England 0-4 Australia
1990-91: Australia 3-0 England
1993: England 1-4 Australia
1994-95: Australia 3-1 England
1997: England 2-3 Australia
1998-99: Australia 3-1 England
2001: England 1-4 Australia
2002-03: Australia 4-1 England
2005: England 2-1 Australia
2006-07: Australia 5-0 England
2009 npower Test Series Fixtures
Wednesday 8 – Sunday 12 July 2009
1st npower Test: Glamorgan Cricket Club, Cardiff
Thursday 16 – Monday 20 July 2009
2nd npower Test: Lord's
Thursday 30 July – Monday 3 August 2009
3rd npower Test: Edgbaston
Friday 7 – Tuesday 11 August 2009
4th npower Test: Headingley
Thursday 20 – Monday 24 August 2009
5th npower Test: The Oval
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