History Behind Ashes Series (Australia vs England- Cricket)

The Ashes Test Series

           

The Ashes is a Test cricket series played between England and Australia  since 1882. It is one of the most celebrated rivalries in international sport and is played biennially, Cricket being a summer sport, and the venues being in opposite hemispheres, the break between series alternates between 18 and 30 months.

An Ashes series comprises five Test matches, two innings per match, under the regular rules for Test cricket. If a series is drawn then the country already holding the Ashes retains them.

Australia's first victory on English soil over the full strength of England, on August 29, 1882, inspired a young London journalist, Reginald Shirley Brooks, to write this mock "obituary''. It appeared in the Sporting Times.

"In affectionate remembrance of English cricket which died at The Oval, 29th August, 1882. Deeply lamented by a large circle of sorrowing friends and acquaintances, RIP. NB The body will be cremated and the Ashes taken to Australia."

Before England's defeat at The Oval, by seven runs, arrangements had already been made for the Hon. Ivo Bligh, afterwards Lord Darnley, to lead a team to Australia. Three weeks later they set out, now with the popular objective of recovering the Ashes. In the event, Australia won the first Test by nine wickets, but with England winning the next two it became generally accepted that they brought back the Ashes.

It was long believed that the real Ashes - a small urn thought to contain the ashes of a bail used in the third match - were presented to Bligh by a group of Melbourne women. In 1998, Lord Darnley's 82-year-old daughter-in-law said they were the remains of her mother-in-law's veil, not a bail. Other evidence suggests a ball. The certain origin of the Ashes, therefore, is the subject of some dispute.

After Lord Darnley's death in 1927, the urn was given to MCC by Lord Darnley's Australian-born widow, Florence. It can be seen in the cricket museum at Lord's, together with a red and gold velvet bag, made especially for it, and the scorecard of the 1882 match.

The text on the urn is as follows:-

When Ivo goes back with the urn, the urn;
Studds, Steel, Read and Tylecote return, return;
The welkin will ring loud,
The great crowd will feel proud,
Seeing Barlow and Bates with the urn, the urn;
And the rest coming home with the urn.

The first Test match between England and Australia was played in 1877, though the Ashes legend started later, after the ninth Test, played in 1882.

On their tour that year (1882) the Australians played just one Test, at the Oval in London. It was a low-scoring affair on a difficult wicket. Australia made a mere 63 runs in its first innings, and England, led by A. N. Hornby, took a 38-run lead with a total of 101. In their second innings, the Australians, boosted by a spectacular 55 runs off 60 deliveries from Hugh Massie, managed 122, which left England only 85 runs to win.

The Australians were greatly demoralized by the manner of their second-innings collapse, but fast bowler Fred Spofforth, spurred on by some gamesmanship by his opponents, refused to give in. "This thing can be done," he declared. Spofforth went on to devastate the English batting, taking his final four wickets for only two runs to leave England just eight runs short of victory in one of the closest finishes in the history of cricket.

When Ted Peate, England's last batsman, came to the crease, his side needed just ten runs to win, but Peate managed only two before he was bowled by Harry Boyle. An astonished Oval crowd fell silent, struggling to believe that England could possibly have lost to a colony. When it finally sank in, the crowd swarmed onto the field, cheering loudly and chairing Boyle and Spofforth to the pavilion.

When Peate returned to the pavilion he was reprimanded by his captain for not allowing his partner, Charles Studd (one of the best batsman in England, having already hit two centuries that season against the colonists) to get the runs. Peate humorously replied, "I had no confidence in Mr. Studd, sir, so thought I had better do my best."

The momentous defeat was widely recorded in the British press, which praised the Australians for their plentiful "pluck" and berated the Englishmen for their lack thereof. A celebrated poem appeared in Punch on Saturday, 9 September. The first verse, quoted most frequently, reads:

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?

On 31 August, in the great Charles Alcock-edited magazine Cricket: A Weekly Record of The Game, there appeared a mock obituary:

SACRED TO THE MEMORY

OF

ENGLAND'S SUPREMACY IN THE

CRICKET-FIELD

WHICH EXPIRED

ON THE 29TH DAY OF AUGUST, AT THE OVAL

"ITS END WAS PEATE"

On 2 September a more celebrated mock obituary, written by Reginald Brooks under the pseudonym "Bloobs", appeared in The Sporting Times. It read:

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.