Kelle, Holly and I attended the SJWWC spring luncheon at Lord’s Cricket Ground on Thursday. We had an interesting tour of the grounds and I learned about the “Ashes”! I like cricket, I really do.
I don’t get it but I am interested. I can’t tell you how many times I have heard cricket is like watching paint dry.
It is amazing to me that a game can go on for five days and have no winner! I love all the white uniforms, the green grass, sitting in the sun and the crowds rushing to all the bars on SJW High St. They drink as much as possible during the lunch break only to head back to the grounds so they can drink some more.
Cricket will never replace baseball in my heart and now that I think about it, I like English Football better than cricket anyhow. OK, so cricket is my second favourite English team sport.
(Does Formula1 count?). The Ashes are a big deal here in
England even if you don’t follow cricket – the Ashes series is more about national pride and a former penal colony than anything else.
England and
Australia play each every two years for a six inch cup.
I love Australians – I think they are some of the best people on the planet. You just have to admire the way love taking the micky out of the English. Australians are tan, athletic and have a great sense of fun! I think this really annoys the English.
Hey, I don’t know I am a foreigner!
Anyway back to the point.
The term
'Ashes' was first used in cricket after an English loss to
Australia – (
Heavens!) - for the first time on English soil - at The Oval on 29th August 1882. The
Sporting Times carried a mock obituary to English cricket which concluded that: "The body will be cremated and the ashes taken to
Australia”. An English team, captained by Ivo Bligh set off to tour
Australia, with Bligh vowing to return with "the ashes”.
While there, Bligh and the amateur players on his team participated in a social match at the Rupertswood Estate outside
Melbourne on Christmas Eve 1882.
Lady Janet Clark, mistress of Rupertswood, presented
Bli
gh with a small terracotta urn as a symbol of the ashes that he had traveled to
Australia to regain. According to our guide the trophy is actually a perfume bottle from her make-up table with the ashes of a bail inside!
In the 1990s, the Marylebone Cricket Club commissioned an urn-shaped Waterford Crystal trophy recognizing the two teams' desire to compete for an actual trophy. In the 2006-07 Ashes series the Waterford was presented to the Australian side after a 5-0 victory over England. The small six inch original urn is encased in protective case in the Lord’s museum with a rather large ugly sign that says NO PICTURES over it! The MCC is not letting the urn out of England for anything!
Kelle, Holly and I attended the SJWWC spring luncheon at Lord’s Cricket Ground on Thursday. We had an interesting tour of the grounds and I learned about the “Ashes”! I like cricket, I really do. I don’t get it but I am interested. I can’t tell you how many times I have heard cricket is like watching paint dry. It is amazing to me that a game can go on for five days and have no winner! I love all the white uniforms, the green grass, sitting in the sun and the crowds rushing to all the bars on SJW High St. They drink as much as possible during the lunch break only to head back to the grounds so they can drink some more. Cricket will never replace baseball in my heart and now that I think about it, I like English Football better than cricket anyhow. OK, so cricket is my second favourite English team sport. (Does Formula1 count?). The Ashes are a big deal here in 
gh with a small terracotta urn as a symbol of the ashes that he had traveled to 
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