IT’S STILL A GUESSING GAME AS MYSTERY SURROUNDS ‘ASHES BALL’
A STORY known by a lot fewer people is that England and Australia’s women also play for ashes. Their historical trophy is known as the ‘Ashes Ball’ and was created rather more recently than the trophy that originated in Sunbury. The trophy itself is a hollowed-out wooden cricket ball, made from a 300-year-old yew tree that blew down in the great storm of 1987.
In 1998, Clare Connor and an 18-year-old Charlotte Edwards were among a group of England and touring Australia players who took part in a ceremonial burning in the Harris Gardens at Lord’s. They set light to both a miniature cricket bat that had been signed by the two teams, and a copy of the Women’s Cricket Association rule book. WCA was the body that ran the women’s game in England at the time and was about to merge with the ECB. The ashes from these items were placed inside the wooden ball, which was then mounted on a plinth. The women had their own Ashes trophy.
There is a mystery surrounding the women’s Ashes trophy though, which was written about by Raf Nicholson in an excellent article on Cricinfo recently. The woodcarver who made the original Ashes Ball actually made two wooden balls. One was filled with the ashes, and one remained empty because the wood had a flaw. In 2001, the Aussies won the Ashes and took this empty trophy back to Australia, leaving the ‘real’ trophy in the Lord’s museum.
In 2013, an impressive new Ashes trophy was created to mark the introduction of the multi-format series. A wooden Ashes ball is mounted within a wigwam of metal stumps – but which Ashes ball is inside the trophy? The empty one or the real one?
Lord’s museum is still in possession of an Ashes ball – it was brought out to me when I recorded a feature there earlier this year. It leads one to presume that the ball in the museum must be the original, but enquiries to the MCC are yet to throw any light on the situation. The only way to find out would be to crack it open. And no one is going to do that.