Oldest of foes launch another quest for tiny urn

Well, it's time to stiffen the sinews and conjure up the blood as old international sporting rivals England and Australia get ready to charge the battlements again for arguably the world's smallest trophy.

The Ashes, a tiny, frail urn barely 15 centimeters tall and about 133 years old, is the token symbol of cricket supremacy between the Commonwealth nations and is fought for with a zeal far exceeding its stature.

Many Australians believe the umbilical cord with mother England was, at least partly, severed during the bloody Gallipoli campaign of World War I. The more scholarly go back to the nation's federation in 1901 while the more romantic see 1877 as the year a young country took its first wobbly steps away from its parent, on a Melbourne field.