Cricket's most famous trophy began as a joke and was never official
England lost a Test at home to Australia in 1882 by just seven runs, and a newspaper printed a mock obituary saying English cricket's body would be cremated. That quip created the Ashes. The tiny urn at the centre of the legend was a private gift, and nobody is completely sure what is inside it.
The fateful match at The Oval was a low-scoring struggle on a difficult pitch. England needed only 85 to win in their second innings, but Fred Spofforth, stung by the gamesmanship of W. G. Grace, declared that it could be done and tore through the batting, taking his last four wickets for two runs. Ted Peate, last man in, scored two before Harry Boyle bowled him. The stunned crowd fell silent, then carried Boyle and Spofforth off shoulder high. Told off for not leaving the runs to the in-form Charles Studd, Peate replied that he had no confidence in Mr Studd.
Days later The Sporting Times published Reginald Shirley Brooks's obituary. England's captain Ivo Bligh then promised to bring back the ashes on the 1882 to 1883 tour of Australia, and his side won the three-match series two to one. Curiously, the name then faded for about twenty years, until Pelham Warner revived it in 1903 by vowing to regain the Ashes and later writing How We Recovered the Ashes.
The urn's origins are murky. Bligh said in 1894 that Melbourne ladies, including his future wife Florence Morphy, gave it to him after the final match; later researchers think it came after a private game over Christmas. Its contents have been described as a stump, a bail, a ball's leather casing and even a veil. In 2006 an MCC official said it was 95 percent certain to hold a burnt bail. After Bligh's death in 1927, his widow gave it to the Marylebone Cricket Club, and it lives in the museum at Lord's, travelling to Australia only three times.
Because it was never the formal prize, winners since the 1998 to 1999 series have received a Waterford Crystal trophy shaped like the urn. Series usually run to five Tests, alternating between the two countries about every two years, and a drawn series leaves the Ashes with the holders.
Source: The Ashes
