England name four potential Women’s Ashes debutants for Australia tour
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- Knight’s side seeking first Ashes win in 10 years
- Women’s series begins on 11 January with three ODIs
England have named four potential Ashes...
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ASHES TO ASHES, ...
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Long before England had a queen — even long before England existed — the Angles and the Saxons hewed spears and hunting bows from the vast stands of ash trees that once blanketed much of this island. Along with the English oak, the ash supported bridges, powered mill wheels and reinforced the hulls of the Royal Navy ships that for centuries kept Spanish, French and German enemies from invading.
The ash is the fourth-most common species today and beloved by millions for its beauty. But it appears to be doomed thanks to the importation of tens of thousands of Dutch and Danish ash trees afflicted by Chalara fraxinea, an incurable blight that strangles the tree by covering its leaves with fungus.
It’s also having a political effect.
"Ashes to ashes," lamented Richard Walker, surveying one of the two dying giants that shade his 500-year-old farmhouse in this bucolic village 100 miles northeast of London. Walker is hardly a Euro-skeptic, as opponents of Britain’s ties with the continent are known. But with Europe’s star very diminished of late thanks to the euro crisis, the ash blight may push some like him over the edge.
"People here knew Danish trees were infected, but they kept importing them,” he said. “There should have been some control."