CRICKET
Mike Selvey
At some time during the last week in August either Steve Waugh or, less likely, Nasser Hussain, will stand on the balcony at the Oval and raise the Ashes urn in measured triumph.
The crowd spread out on the grass below will strain to catch a glimpse of one of the most famous trophies in sport and, if they have an ounce of humour in them, will burst into fits of giggles at the absurdity of it all.
Have you ever seen the Ashes? In the Lord’s museum? Photographs do not tell the story because generally there is no scale for reference as might be seen, for example, when a premature baby is held birdlike in the palm of a hand.
So, for those who are not aware, the Ashes urn which I had imagined to be a magnificent thing, the size of the Open Championship claret jug, say is a massive 9cm high. It is a tiddler, an egg cup, a Victorian eyebath barely large enough for a double gin.
For the Ashes caboodle, as is common practice, blame the press.
In 1882 Australia beat England by seven wickets in such tense circumstances that, so legend has it, a spectator with exceptional teeth bit through the handle of his brolly.
Reginald Shirley Brooks a young journalist, bit of a wag, that sort of thing placed a spoof obituary in the Sporting Times, mourning the death of English cricket and adding that the cremated body would be sent to Australia. Three weeks later Ivo Bligh’s team set off for that country with the nation demanding he bring back the Ashes. So the idea was born.
It was a bunch of ladies from Sunbury, a town near Melbourne, who had the idea of the urn itself, though, one of them presenting it to Bligh after he had won the series 2-1 and, as if that was not enough, marrying him for good measure.
I like to think that what they commissioned was more impressive and that, when it was delivered, the conversation was along the lines of that in Rob Reiner’s classic Spinal Tap film, between the band’s put-upon manager Ian and the set designer who had produced a model of Stonehenge 40cm high rather than lifesize because the “confused” guitarist Nigel Tufnel had scrawled the symbol for inches instead of feet on the scrap of paper on which he drew his idea.
Bligh’s reaction on receiving this gift is not recorded but I bet his moustache twitched.