The Ashes Explained: Origins, Format, and Why England vs Australia Still Matters

Two days after England were beaten at The Oval in August 1882, the Sporting Times published a mock obituary for English cricket. It noted, dryly, that the body would be cremated and the ashes taken to Australia. Within months an England team captained by Ivo Bligh was on a ship heading south, and a small terracotta urn had slipped into the game's folklore. More than 140 years on, that joke still names the most consequential contest in the sport.

An Obituary, a Tour, and a Small Terracotta Urn

The match that started it was a low-scoring thriller. Australia made 63 and 122 at The Oval; England replied with 101 and then, chasing 85 to win, were bowled out for 77. Fred Spofforth took fourteen wickets across the two innings, and Australia won by seven runs. It was the first time England had lost a Test on home soil.

In Affectionate Remembrance of ENGLISH CRICKET, which died at the Oval on 29th August, 1882. N.B. — The body will be cremated and the ashes taken to Australia.

Bligh's side went to Australia that winter and won the three-match series 2-1. Somewhere in the celebrations, a small urn was presented to him. Accounts differ on who handed it over and what it contains; the most repeated version involves a bail, burned and sealed inside. Nobody has opened it to check, and nobody is likely to.

The urn is not the trophy

This is the detail that confuses newcomers most. The urn never travels. It sits in the MCC Museum at Lord's, where it has been since Bligh's widow gave it to the club in 1927. Winners are presented with a separate trophy, but the urn stays put. When a series is drawn, the side already holding the Ashes simply retains them — which is why a 2-2 scoreline can still feel like a defeat for one team and a successful defence for the other.

What a Modern Ashes Series Looks Like

England and Australia alternate as hosts, and a series is normally five Test matches spread across roughly six weeks. Five is the convention rather than a fixed law: the sides have played six-match and even seven-match series in the past when schedules allowed. In England the venues rotate around Lord's, The Oval, Edgbaston, Headingley, Old Trafford and Trent Bridge, with the occasional visit to Durham, Southampton or Cardiff. In Australia, the Gabba, Adelaide Oval, the MCG, the SCG and Perth Stadium carry most of the load, and Hobart has had a turn.

The conditions change the cricket more than most casual viewers realise. In England, the Dukes ball swings and seams, the ball is often moving in the air at 11am, and a score of 250 can be a good one. In Australia, the Kookaburra stops swinging early, pitches are harder and faster, and the contest becomes about bounce and patience. Recently the Australians have scheduled a day-night Test at Adelaide, where the pink ball behaves differently again under lights.

The Winner, the Loser, and the Retention Rule

There is no cumulative table here. Each series stands alone, and the side that wins more Tests in that series takes it. Draw the series and the holders keep the Ashes. Australia retained them in 2019 after a 2-2 draw, and again in 2023 by the same margin. That single rule explains why a drawn Ashes summer can still feel like a knife-edge event: one team is defending something, the other is trying to take it.

Captains and coaches are judged on almost nothing else. An England captain can win limited-overs trophies and still be defined by an Ashes summer; an Australian batter can average well for years and still be remembered for a single failure in a Boxing Day Test.

Series That Shaped the Rivalry

1. 1882–83: The Oval defeat, the obituary, and Bligh's tour that turned a joke into a fixture.
2. 1932–33: Bodyline. Douglas Jardine's fast leg theory aimed at Don Bradman, and a diplomatic row that outlasted the cricket.
3. 1948: Bradman's Invincibles toured England unbeaten, winning the series 4-0.
4. 1981: England, one down and following on at Headingley, turned the series around to win 3-1 — Ian Botham's summer.
5. 2005: England's first Ashes win since 1986–87, sealed in a two-run Test at Edgbaston.
6. 2019 and 2023: Ben Stokes' one-wicket finish at Headingley, then a drawn series at home decided by fine margins and a controversial stumping at Lord's.

Why It Still Matters

Because both countries care in a way that is hard to fake. Australia's domestic Sheffield Shield and England's county circuit exist largely to produce players who can survive an Ashes series, and everyone in both systems knows it. Ticket demand outstrips supply almost everywhere. The Barmy Army follows England abroad in numbers no other touring support matches, and a Boxing Day Test at the MCG can pull a crowd that makes the ground feel like a stadium for a different sport entirely.

Australia won eight consecutive series between 1989 and 2002–03, and that run shaped a generation of English cricket thinking. Since 2005 the honours have been more evenly split, with England winning at home in 2005, 2009, 2013 and 2015, and Australia dominant everywhere else. The rivalry is competitive again, and that makes it better.

How to Follow a Series Properly

A few habits will make the cricket readable rather than just watchable.

• Watch the first hour. In England, the new ball in the morning is the whole match in miniature. If a side gets through it one down, the day changes shape.
• Track the series, not the Test. Momentum carries. A team that loses by an innings in the first Test can still win the urn, but you have to watch how the bowling workloads and the batting order respond.
• Learn the retention rule before the arguments start. It decides how much risk a side takes on the final day of a dead fifth Test.
• Set your alarm with intent. Tests in Australia run late at night and into the early morning for UK viewers; home Ashes summers in England land in prime time for Australia. Pick the sessions that matter and sleep through the rest.
• Follow the build-up. Form in county cricket and the Sheffield Shield in the months before a series tells you who is actually ready.

Above all, resist the urge to write off a player after one bad Ashes Test. Careers in this fixture have been rebuilt in an afternoon, and the ones that were never rebuilt are remembered precisely because the standard is so unforgiving.

Photo: Patrick Case / Pexels