Have We Earned The Urn?

The Ashes Urn contains the burnt remnants of the bails from the first England -v- Australia cricket series. It is the symbolic trophy for the winner, who is referred to for the next 2 years as "the holders of The Ashes".

The confounding part of this is that even though Australia have been the 'holders of the Ashes' for the last 20-odd years, the Urn has never resided in Australia. This is because it is a fragile English national heirloom, and was considered irreplaceable should us rowdy convicts do something untoward with it. Each time we won the series, they let us take home a replica, rumoured to be engraved with the phrase "We won the Ashes and all we got was this lousy replica."

So how synchronously ironic is it that with the series tipped dangerously towards an England victory (Australia must win the 5th and final test next week to retain the Ashes), we may finally possess the Ashes urn on our shores, and may not even be the holders of it.