What if someone had dropped a hammer on the little ceramic creation and smashed The Ashes urn at Lord's in the late 1960s? Could it have happened? It was certainly talked about.
This wonderful and rich contest that began in 1877 is bigger and better today than ever. But in the 1960s as hair grew longer, skirts shortened and pop music blossomed, it was totally 'uncool'.
Yet this was entry-level Ashes cricket to passionate Test cricket fan and author Mark Browning.
Growing up in the Victorian regional city of Geelong in the 1960s, he embraced The Ashes and its players when it was at its lowest ebb and then rejoiced at its renaissance in 1972, cementing a relationship that endures with undimmed passion and admiration more than half a century later.
This is The Ashes: A Coming of Age Memoir.
