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Originally Posted by Cunning_Linguist
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@ PLAYERF
Yaar the rivalry has nothing to do with 2005...
England and Australia have been intense rivals for hundreds of years on both the cricket and rugby pitch.
The most famous rivalry is the Ashes series which stems from a burnt bail being placed in a small urn in 1882 to signify the death of English cricket after the Australians had triumphed on English soil.
The obituary stated that English cricket had died, and the body will be cremated and the ashes taken to Australia. The English media then dubbed the next English tour to Australia (1882–83) as the quest to regain The Ashes.
The battles remain as fierce to this day and have become famous for the ‘sledging’ that is designed to put batsmen off their game.
It also has a lot to do with the Australian hatred for the English which dates back 100's of years when England would send Convicted criminals to Australia instead of keeping them in prisons/jails in the UK. Suffice to say 90% of Australians have murderers rapists etc in their family tree lol and consequently we refer to Australia as a CONVICT COLONY
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i understand the significance and the history of the rivalry and how much the aussies detest the english. however, a rivalry is only a rivalry if its competitive. england australia is lop sided, and it doesnt even have that global viewership...not more than 15 million people (out of 70 million )in england watched the 2005 ashes on TV...and australias popn is around 25 million..so max...their own country's viewers are like 40 million, and that is saying it nicely...india pakistan viewership exceeds 500 million easily!
and this whole burnt ashes business and the history behind it...the hype is created by both the english and the aussie media because they tend to think that they 'own' cricket, and want to remind everyone how significant this is...
wait 50 years, and ashes wont be any different than any other rivalry, because the other rivalries will have the time behind them to play itself out.
so again, although i do not undermine the importance of the ashes and the history behind it...i do think that its over-exagerrated, and the rivalry is not really that competitive or close to be a real 'rivalry'. england winning once every 20 years is not really a 'rivalry' hehehe
