No, it's not the Ashes. Instead Randy Boswell in the Montreal Gazette looks at the history of cricket between Canada and the United States.

"It was the world’s first documented nation-versus-nation sporting event, a September 1844 contest in New York City between Canada and the United States.

No, not baseball. Not hockey. Cricket. That’s right — flat bat, wickets and whites.

Now, 167 years after the landmark match that blazed a trail for soccer’s World Cup and the Olympics — including Sidney Crosby’s gold-medal moment against the U.S. at last year’s Winter Games in Vancouver — the two countries that made sports history at Manhattan’s long-disappeared Bloomingdale Park are poised to revive their cricketing rivalry in a head-to-head series this spring."