The Ashes is a Test cricket series played between England (England cricket team) and Australia (Australia national cricket team). It is one of international crickets most celebrated rivalries (sports rivalry) and dates back to 1882. It is currently played biennially, alternately in the United Kingdom and Australia. Since cricket is a summer game, the venues being in opposite hemispheres means the break between series alternates between 18 and 30 months. A series of "The Ashes" comprises five Test matches, two innings per match, under the regular rules for international Test-match cricket. If a series is drawn then the country already holding the Ashes retains them.

The series is named after a satirical (satire) obituary published in a British newspaper, The Sporting Times, in 1882 after a match at The Oval in which Australia beat England on an English ground for the first time. The obituary stated that English cricket had died, and the body will be cremated and the ashes taken to Australia. The English media dubbed the next English tour to Australia (1882-83) as the quest to regain The Ashes.

During that tour a small terracotta urn was presented to England captain (English national cricket captains) Ivo Bligh (Ivo Bligh, 8th Earl of Darnley) by a group of Melbourne women. The contents of the urn are reputed to be the ashes of an item of cricket equipment, possibly a bail (bail (cricket)), ball or stump. The Dowager Countess of Darnley claimed recently that her mother-in-law, Blighs wife Florence Morphy, said that they were the remains of a ladys veil.

The urn is erroneously believed by some to be the trophy of the Ashes series, but it has never been formally adopted as such and Bligh always considered it to be a personal gift. Replicas of the urn are often held aloft by victorious teams as a symbol of their victory in an Ashes series, but the actual urn has never been presented or displayed as a trophy in this way. Whichever side holds the Ashes, the urn normally remains in the Marylebone Cricket Club Museum at Lords (Lords Cricket Ground) since being presented to the MCC by Blighs widow upon his death.

Since the 1998-99 Ashes series, a Waterford Crystal representation of the Ashes urn has been presented to the winners of an Ashes series as the official trophy of that series.

England currently holds The Ashes, after beating Australia 2-1 to regain them in the 2009 Ashes series which took place in England and for the first time, Wales.