The Birth of the Ashes — Oval Test, 1882

By 1882 Australia had toured England several times but had won only one Test (the inaugural one at Melbourne in 1877). The 1882 side, led by Billy Murdoch and built around Spofforth, Boyle, Bannerman and Massie, was widely rated the strongest yet sent. The single Test of the tour was scheduled for The Oval in late August, almost as an afterthought to the heavy fixture list of county and exhibition matches.

England fielded a powerful XI under AN 'Monkey' Hornby — WG Grace, AG Steel, AP Lucas, the Hon Alfred Lyttelton (keeping wicket), Ted Peate, Dick Barlow, George Ulyett, Maurice Read, CT Studd and AG Steel. They were considered overwhelming favourites at home.

Heavy rain on the eve of the Test softened the pitch. Australia struggled to 63 in their first innings, and even with a low England reply the bookmakers shortened the home side's price further. Massie's 55-ball half-century in the second innings was the only batting of substance on either side, and even after that England needed only 85 — a chase no Test side had ever failed at home.

Australia won the toss and were dismissed for 63 on a damp Oval pitch, Dick Barlow taking 5 for 19 and Ted Peate 4 for 31. England replied with 101, a slim lead of 38, before Hugh Massie tore into the bowling on the second morning with a 55-ball 55 that dragged Australia to 122 second time around. England needed only 85.

The chase began calmly. WG Grace made a stylish 32 and the score reached 51 for 2 with Ulyett, Lucas and Lyttelton still to come. Then Spofforth, by his own later account, walked back to his mark muttering 'this thing can be done' and bowled what may be the most psychologically loaded spell in 19th-century cricket. Working in tandem with Harry Boyle, he ran through the middle order with a mixture of cutters and changes of pace on a pitch that was now drying. Wickets fell in clusters; the crowd of around 20,000 grew almost silent as England slid from 51/2 to 75/8.

With ten still wanted and the last two batsmen at the crease — number 11 Ted Peate and the Cambridge amateur CT Studd, then arguably the finest amateur batsman in England — Peate took the strike. He swiped a Boyle delivery to leg for two, played and missed at the next, then swung again and was bowled. England 77 all out; Australia had won by 7 runs. When Peate was upbraided for not trusting his celebrated partner he is supposed to have replied, 'I couldn't trust Mr Studd' — Studd had been padded up but unaccountably left lower in the order.

Four days later, on 2 September 1882, the satirical magazine The Sporting Times printed a single-paragraph mock obituary written by Reginald Shirley Brooks under the pen-name 'Bloobs', borrowing the conventions of a Victorian death notice. The English cricket team, it announced, had died at The Oval on 29 August; the body would be cremated and the ashes taken to Australia. The joke caught — first in pavilion bars and music halls, then in the press — and within months the next England tour to Australia was being framed as a quest to 'recover the Ashes.'

“In affectionate remembrance of English cricket, which died at the Oval on 29th August, 1882. Deeply lamented by a large circle of sorrowing friends and acquaintances. R.I.P. N.B. The body will be cremated and the ashes taken to Australia.”

“This thing can be done.”

“I couldn't trust Mr Studd.”

WG Grace was reportedly inconsolable; spectators are said to have died of heart attacks during the chase, though this folkloric detail (one bookmaker, one elderly fan) cannot be reliably sourced. Spofforth's 14/90 stood as the best match analysis in Tests until SF Barnes overtook it in 1913.

Within six weeks the Hon Ivo Bligh had been appointed to lead a private English party to Australia in 1882-83 with the explicit, joking aim of bringing the Ashes back. The trip — and the small terracotta urn presented to Bligh at Rupertswood after the series — would turn the Sporting Times joke into a permanent piece of cricket iconography.