The Ashes

Today England lost “The Ashes” to Australia. Correct me if I’m wrong, but is cricket not the strangest of all sports? The Ashes, as I understand it, is a cricket tournament held between only England and Australia. It all started back in 1882 when England lost to Australia for the first time. As a symbol to show that England’s cricket was “dead,” some of the equipment used in that game was burned and the ashes stored in a small little urn. This tiny urn of ashes is now the trophy prize in the game that has gone on between the two countries ever since.

Even more bizarre is that it is only held in the summer in whichever country is hosting the event. But since summer time in Australia is during England’s winter months, the tournament only gets held ever 18 to 30 months. The next one isn’t until 2009! In any case, England embarrassed itself today by losing The Ashes in the 3^rd of 5 games played. It had already taken them 16 years to win back the urn the last time the tournament was played 15 months ago, only to lose it again today it in a matter of days.

And here’s the best of the lot. The winner of The Ashes is whichever team wins the best of 5 games. And each game takes 5 days to play! With breaks between games, a full 5 games could effectively take over a month to play. And it doesn’t stop there. The games are so long and drawn out that they even take time out for a lunch AND a tea break during each day of play. What a life.

And yet I still don’t understand the first thing about the rules of the game. I’ll leave that to another day.

Update (Fri, Jan 5, 2007):

Well, I overlooked something else about the Ashes. Apparently, even though Australia won The Ashes back on Dec 18^th, the series wasn’t over. They continue to play all 5 games to the end. Today Australia celebrated their first “whitewash” since 1921 by beating England in all 5 games. Now The Ashes is officially over. Good grief. Talk about overkill. Can you imagine the World Series going all 7 games regardless of who might have won?