Ashes Back to England!

At 6.15 on Sept 12, the Australian captain handed over ownership of cricket’s oldest and most treasured prize ---- The Ashes to England. It is more than 18 years since English cricket last celebrated this feat, when Gladstone Small caught Merv Hughes in the deep at the Melbourne Cricket Ground on 28 December 1986, and today a nation rose to its feet once more to applaud a team that it has every right to be proud of.

Bad light had forced the players of England and Australia from the pitch, making it a rather soft and touching way for such an intense, hard-fought and brilliant series to end.

Kevin Pietersen, who scored a quite brilliant 158 here to take the fifth Test out of Australia’s reach, and ensure England retained their 2-1 lead in the series, will grab the headlines. Without him the Ashes could have been making their way back to Sydney with Ponting and his Australian team-mates.

But every member of Vaughan’s dedicated and vibrant young side should be looked on as a hero. Andrew Flintoff has been a colossus, inspiring Vaughan’s charges on every occasion they were in trouble, yet at some stage in this astonishing series each of the 12 players used by England has contributed to the team’s success.
Even Paul Collingwood, playing in his only Test of the summer, batted for 71 minutes with Pietersen when England looked as though they might yet blow it. It will take some time for these players to realise just what they have achieved during the last two months, or come to terms with their new-found status. Indeed, their lives may never be the same again. But during the next few days each of them can sit down and reflect on taking part in the best Test series that this great sport has ever seen.

Roared on by a fervent crowd, England batted positively before they were finally bowled out for 335. And it was fitting that the truly magnificent Shane Warne should take the final wicket in his last Test on English soil. The presence of the game’s greatest-ever bowler has only heightened the appeal of this series, and when he had Stephen Harmison caught at slip it took his tally in the series to 40. Warne did not deserve to be on the losing side, but the fact that he was had been largely down to the batting of his close friend Pietersen. He may not be everyone’s cup of tea, but, boy, can he play. And the manner in which he handled the pressure here highlighted what a wonderful future he has in this England side.