Cricket: MCC rejects Howard's plea on Ashes

LONDON - The Marylebone Cricket Club is steadfastly clinging to its fragile Ashes urn and will never hand it to Australia.

Despite calls from parties ranging from Australian Prime Minister John Howard to British newspaper The Times, the MCC refuses to part with the 120-year-old urn even after Australia's eighth consecutive Ashes series win.

"The Ashes urn is not and never has been a trophy competed for between Australia and England," MCC spokesman Iain Wilton said yesterday.

"The trophy is the Waterford crystal trophy which will be presented to Steve Waugh at the end of the series."

The MCC owns the 10cm-tall urn which was presented to England captain Ivo Bligh in 1882-83, and displays it in its museum at Lord's in London.

It had planned to take the urn on a tour of Australia this summer, but was advised it was too fragile and could be damaged beyond repair if it was moved and subjected to changes in humidity and pressure.

Australians may still get a chance to see the wooden urn briefly next year, but Wilton said it would never be held permanently in Australia or used as a trophy for series winners.

"We remain committed to displaying the original urn in Australia. We are hoping in a year to take it to Australia to commemorate the centenary of the first MCC tour."

The urn has once left London, when it was taken to Australia for the 1988 bicentennial celebrations.

A large crystal trophy based on it was commissioned in 1998, but Australian teams have held up a life-sized replica urn after winning recent series.

Waugh's team paraded one of the two replicas around Perth's Waca ground after winning the third test on Sunday.

In an editorial yesterday, the Times said Australia had earned the right to the urn.

Howard said it was a fair expectation for it to go to Australia.

"Given our sustained supremacy, it is not unreasonable to argue the urn should be on display in Australia," he said. If the urn went to Australia, England would have " a much greater incentive to win it back".

- AGENCIES