Do you know why the Ashes series is called so? When England lost its first Test to Australia on home soil in 1882, a reporter mockingly wrote that English cricket was dead and its ashes would be taken to Australia. A few months later, when the English team travelled to Australia and won, a few ladies in Melbourne gifted this small urn to the English captain. Some say that it contains the burnt ashes of a bail or a ball. It became known that the ?ashes? of English cricket had been won back. The name has stuck on for the England-Australia series.