“People who fight fire with fire usually end up with the Ashes” – Abigail Van Buren. So when the two biggest rivals in the cricket history come face to face, Ashes Cup war begins.
The Ashes Cup is a test cricket played between England and Australia. It is the most awaited series in the cricket world played between the two biggest rivals – England and Australia.
The term ‘Ashes’ was first coined after England lost to Australia in their own land and an obituary was published in the British weekly newspaper, way back in 1882. After this heart-rending match and the obituary, Ivo Bligh, the then English captain, pledged to get back the “ashes” to his motherland.This fictitious ‘ashes’ grabbed a worldwide attention and hence the The “Ashes Cup” test series began.
The cup presented after winning The Ashes is a replica of the actual urn in which ashes of late Lord Darnley widow’ s veil are placed. This real urn can be currently seen in in the cricket’s museum at Lord’s. This is world’s famous and smallest trophies.
The first ever ‘Ashes Cup’ was played on 30 December 1882 at The Oval and Australia emerged as winners by 7 runs.
Till date, a total of 68 series were played, among which 32 were won by Australia and the 31 by England and the rest, 5 were declared as drawn.
Australia, captained by Alastair Cook, won the 2014 ‘Ashes Cup’ series which was held in Sydney at Stadium Australia.
Best Ashes performances by Australia
The team Australia is considered as the most ferocious cricketers and here are some of the uneven performances given by them through the Ashes years:
- In 1891, Australia chased a whopping of 213 runs and bowled out England with 158 runs even though their team had a fleet of bad batsmen.
- 1897, even though the ill KS Ranjitsinhji made a smashing score of 175, Australia lifted the cup for the second and third tests win.
- The year 1902 came as gift for Australians as bad weather showed up and the first two matches, out of five were declared as drawn and two were won by the Australians.
- Year 1974, the massacre done by Dennis Lillee and Jeff Thomson, with 58 wickets toether led the Australia’s smashing win by 4-1.
- In 1994, Shane Warne’s hat-trick, the first ever by an Australian in 90 years.
Adam Gilchrist’s fastest test century from 57 balls put the 2005’s bad memories to rest in 2007.
Best Ashes Performances by England
Team England were too, at times, have fine performances too:
- 1890, Australia’s Billy Murdoch led the team but due to their weak batting, England were the winners.
- With Bert Oldfield fracturing the skull and his subsequent return in the fifth test in 1932 was considered as the most talked-about in the history of cricket.
- At the Oval, six minutes time made England a winner again with Derek Underwood taking his fourth wicket in 1968.
- Ray Illingworth, England’s captain during the 1971 Ashes Cup won again. This is vividly remembered as John Snow was pelted with stones for throwing a bouncer at Terry Jenner.
- 1986 is the year where Martin Johnson’s famous line against the England ‘can’t bat, can’t bowl, can’t field’ was proved utterly wrong with England winning by seven wickets.
The best remembered even today, is the year 2003 with Andrew Caddick, England’s fast bowler taking 10 wickets in the match and England won by 225 runs.
There’s More Though
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