Poor woman with unfortunate twitter handle now forced to learn about cricket

A woman who goes by the Twitter handle “theashes” was puttering around on the internet as usual one day when all of a sudden she was cyber-accosted by a bunch of eager cricket fans who looked to her as a depository for recent cricket scores. You see, The Ashes is also a test cricket tournament series played between Australia and England, which Wikipedia heralds as cricket’s “most spirited rivalry” that dates to 1882, which sounds believable enough so I’ll trust it as the truth.

But 22-year-old American Ashley Kerekes knew nothing of that. And what started out as a petty misunderstanding turned into an all-out assault on the senses of poor Ashley, whose main tweeting interests before this consisted of her small child and knitting. As other cricket enthusiasts hopped on to the “twitter at ‘theashes’ and make her go crazy’ train,” her followers skyrocketed from around 100 to where it stands now, with almost people 8,000 at her command. Though at first reluctant, she has finally come around to accept the instant fame her accidental twitter handle has created for her, but she won’t let it effect her home life, recently tweeting, “I feel bad that I’m having to turn everyone down for interviews right now, but I really do have to leave for work soon!! “

Cricket fans across England and Australia have turned to Twitter to share their thoughts on the Test series and have found @theashes on the social networking service.

At first she was amused by the sudden attention, but it quickly lost its novelty. “I am not a cricket match. Stop mentioning me and check profiles before you send messages. It’s really annoying,” she wrote. But her irritation only prompted others to re-tweet her comments to hundreds more. The teasing spread fast with Twitter users encouraging others to follow her to get the latest Ashes updates.

She now has more than 4100 followers — up from a few hundred people before the Ashes series began — and her frustration is clearly evident: “I AM NOT A FREAKING CRICKET MATCH!!!”

Monday afternoon, Qantas offered her flights from New York to Australia to watch a Test between Australia and England.

Our lady of luck is also trying to capitalize on her newfound fame by turning a quick buck, reluctantly stating in her bio, “If you’re going to harass me about cricket, at least buy a t-shirt.” Ah, capitalism! How I love thee.

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It’s just not cricket, says American Ashes tweeter [Daily Telegraph]