Tasmania added to Ashes Urn tour

Tasmania has been added to the list of venues for the forthcoming Ashes Exhibition tour of Australia, in which the original Ashes urn, plus over 30 other unique artefacts charting the shared cricket history of England and Australia, will put on display to the Australian public.

The display will take place in the Tasmanian Museum and Art Gallery, in Hobart, from January 18 to 21, 2007, and the extension to the itinerary comes as a result of lengthy discussions between the new secretary & chief executive of MCC, Keith Bradshaw (a former captain of Tasmania), the Tasmanian Museum and Art Gallery, and the Premier of Tasmania, Paul Lennon.

Bradshaw said: "As secretary & chief executive of MCC, I am delighted that, with the support of Travelex, it has proved possible to extend the opportunity to see the Ashes urn to thousands more Australians. As a Tasmanian, I am even more delighted that Hobart is the city that has been added to the itinerary! This is the first - and may be the only - time that the Ashes urn has been able to undertake such a wide-ranging tour. I hope as many people as possible will take the opportunity to view the exhibition."

Tasmania Premier, Paul Lennon, welcomed the state being included in The Ashes Exhibition tour of Australia. "I am delighted that the Ashes urn is coming to Tasmania," Mr. Lennon said. "This is a wonderful acknowledgment of the outstanding contribution Tasmanians have made to cricket in Australia."

David Boon, the legendary Tasmanian cricketer, said: "This is a fantastic opportunity for the people of Tasmania to view the most historic and traditional symbol of Anglo-Australian cricket. The Tasmanian Cricket Association will very much look forward to receiving the Urn for display in our state."

The Ashes Exhibition has been organised by MCC in association with Travelex, Australia's principal sponsors. It was originally agreed that the Ashes urn would visit two cities in Australia (Sydney and Melbourne) in 2002. Preparations for this visit were halted when x-rays of the urn, ordered by its insurers, revealed that it was too fragile to travel.

Following expert restoration of the urn, a more extensive tour was planned to include the cities in which matches would be played during the forthcoming Test series in Australia. More recent developments have resulted in the involvement of the Bradman Museum at Bowral (which has lent items from its collection to the exhibition at the Museum of Sydney) and the exhibition at the Tasmanian Museum and Art Gallery in Hobart.

The exhibition is opened at the Museum of Sydney on October 21, and closes in Tasmania on January 21, having taken in stints in Brisbane (Nov 12 to 22), Adelaide (Nov 26 to Dec 6), Perth (Dec 10 to 20) and Melbourne (Dec 26 to Jan 14).