The Ashes is a four-inch urn that has never been a trophy

When Australia beat England at The Oval in 1882 - their first Test win on English soil - a mock obituary in the Sporting Times declared English cricket dead, joking that “the body will be cremated and the ashes taken to Australia.”

Months later, on the 1882-83 tour, England captain Ivo Bligh set out to win those ashes back. After a victory there, a bail - one of the small wooden crosspieces resting on the stumps - was burned, placed in a little terracotta urn, and given to him as a personal gift.

That urn is just 10.5 cm (about 4 inches) tall. Despite naming one of sport’s oldest rivalries, it is not actually the prize teams compete for.

Win or lose, the original Ashes urn stays in the MCC Museum at Lord’s; it was a personal memento and “is not and never has been a trophy.”