The Ashes

We were talking about cricket the other day, and the question of The Ashes came up. I had heard a long time ago that The Ashes came about because of a crushing defeat of England at the hand of the Aussies, and someone had presented to the Aussies an urn which contained the ashes of the cricket stumps from the match.

Wikipedia says:

The Ashes is a Test cricket series, played between England and Australia - it is international cricket's most celebrated rivalry and dates back to 1882. It is currently played nominally biennially, alternately in England and Australia.

The series is named after a satirical obituary published in an English newspaper, The Sporting Times, in 1882 after the 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 then dubbed the next English tour to Australia (1882-83) as the quest to regain The Ashes.

During that tour in Australia, a small terracotta urn was presented as a gift to the 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 urn is erroneously believed, by some, to be the trophy of the Ashes series but it has never been formally adopted as such and Ivo Bligh always considered it to be a personal gift.

While I was looking for related articles, I came across this flash-based game of cricket. Enjoy.