Australian cricket team in England in 1882

The captain himself tried to offer resistance with a defensive 13, and the experienced Blackham top-scored with 17, but the only other batsman to reach double figures was Garrett with 10.

Some of the Australians were demoralised by their second-innings collapse but fast bowler Spofforth, enraged by some gamesmanship on the part of Grace, was determined to win.

In Spofforth's next over, after he bowled Lucas for 5, England were 75 for 8, needing ten more runs for victory, but with only two wickets remaining.

Contemporary accounts report that there was palpable tension among the spectators with the crowd steadily increasing throughout the day as news of the match spread.

On 31 August, in Cricket: A Weekly Record of the Game, there appeared a now-obscure mock obituary:[full citation needed] Two days later, on 2 September, a second, more celebrated mock obituary, written by Reginald Brooks under the pseudonym "Bloobs", appeared in The Sporting Times.

[full citation needed] read as follows: Ivo Bligh as captain of the England team which toured Australia in 1882–83, promised to regain "those ashes".

The three-match series resulted in a two-one win to England, notwithstanding a fourth match, won by the Australians, whose status remains a matter of ardent dispute.

[5] The true and global revitalisation of interest in the concept dates from 1903, when Pelham Warner took a team to Australia with the promise that he would regain "the ashes".

As had been the case on Bligh's tour twenty years before, the Australian media latched fervently onto the term, and, this time, it stuck.