DiscussWorldIssues - Socio-Economic Religion and Political Uncensored Debate - View Single Post

**biannaruh** · 12-21-2006, 03:07 PM

Hello Paul

A look at the countries of origin of the contributors to this thread will show that they are from the UK, or, in my case, Australia, where cricket is the national summer sport, as popular in these countries as baseball is in yours. Even a non-fan like me can't escape knowing something about the game!

The Ashes series held every two years commemorates the first victory of an Australian team on English soil over England at Test level in 1882. Australia was then still a collection of British colonies (Federation and national self-government came in 1901), and the cultural cringe was such that a group of toffy English fans had a mock obituary published in a sporting newspaper, mourning "the death of English cricket", and announcing the "body will be cremated and the ashes sent to Australia". The following year, the English side toured Australia, the tour was described as "the quest to regain the ashes". Not surprisingly, a group of Melbourne women with a sense of humour duly presented the English captain with a small clay "urn" (possibly originally a perfume bottle), containing the ashes from a burnt wooden cricket stump. This urn made its way to England with the victorious team. The urn is now the trophy of the tournament, though it is in permanent residence at the Marylebone Cricket Club, the spiritual home of English cricket. As far as I know, the urn has only left England once (owing to the fragility of the little treasure, according to the MCC

), where it went on display in various museums and cultural institutions all over Australia during this year's Ashes series.

I might add that the game of cricket can be truly incomprehensible to those not familiar with it (much the same as the inscrutability of American football to the average Aussie). Mad dogs and Englishmen and all that .... I might be accused of "heresy" here from the forum's cricket fans

, but one of the main reasons I was turned off the sport as a youngster was the sheer, aching boredom of waiting for Geoffrey Boycott (and others of his ilk) to score a run!

12-21-2006, 03:07 PM	#19
biannaruh Join Date Nov 2005 Posts 445 Senior Member	Hello Paul A look at the countries of origin of the contributors to this thread will show that they are from the UK, or, in my case, Australia, where cricket is the national summer sport, as popular in these countries as baseball is in yours. Even a non-fan like me can't escape knowing something about the game! The Ashes series held every two years commemorates the first victory of an Australian team on English soil over England at Test level in 1882. Australia was then still a collection of British colonies (Federation and national self-government came in 1901), and the cultural cringe was such that a group of toffy English fans had a mock obituary published in a sporting newspaper, mourning "the death of English cricket", and announcing the "body will be cremated and the ashes sent to Australia". The following year, the English side toured Australia, the tour was described as "the quest to regain the ashes". Not surprisingly, a group of Melbourne women with a sense of humour duly presented the English captain with a small clay "urn" (possibly originally a perfume bottle), containing the ashes from a burnt wooden cricket stump. This urn made its way to England with the victorious team. The urn is now the trophy of the tournament, though it is in permanent residence at the Marylebone Cricket Club, the spiritual home of English cricket. As far as I know, the urn has only left England once (owing to the fragility of the little treasure, according to the MCC ), where it went on display in various museums and cultural institutions all over Australia during this year's Ashes series. I might add that the game of cricket can be truly incomprehensible to those not familiar with it (much the same as the inscrutability of American football to the average Aussie). Mad dogs and Englishmen and all that .... I might be accused of "heresy" here from the forum's cricket fans , but one of the main reasons I was turned off the sport as a youngster was the sheer, aching boredom of waiting for Geoffrey Boycott (and others of his ilk) to score a run!
	Quote