The most common and most likely answer to this crossword clue is the 3 plus 5 letter word THE ASHES
I've seen this crossword clue in Financial Times
T
H
E
A
S
H
E
S
More clues leading to the result THE ASHES
- He has batted in cricket match briefly — in struggle for this?
- With energy ousting resistance, heavily defeats in a series of games
- Battersnot right for this?
- She hates revision for a series of tests
- Trophy remains under fire
- Female coming in hates crappy cricket series
- Contents of a tiny urn she hates to scatter
- England’s opener in mess in most of Test cricket series
- Hates playing second – what about 8?
- She hates breaking sporting trophy
Buddy explains!
The straight part
We know that "sporting trophy" is the straight/definition part of the clue. The straight part is often a synonym or definition, in this case sporting trophy = the ashes.The cryptic/wordplay part
In cryptic crossword there's often an wordplay/cryptic part as well.This part involves a more complex hint, such as an anagram, homophone, hidden word, etc.
Sadly, We don't have an explanation for this specific crossword clue yet.