Hurrah!

Today England have won the Ashes for the first time in sixteen years. It has been an absorbing, fascinating and tense battle over the past seven weeks. The sportmanship has been first class, with both sides showing tremendous spirit and determination, yet being respectful towards one another.

This series has had several players who have lit up the country over the past few weeks, especially Freddie Flintoff and Shane Warne. Both players have shown aggression and skill when bowling, and flair and strength when batting. They have also shown amazing passion for the game, lifting their respective teams when things had been going badly, yet never resorting to underhand tactics or abusing the opposition or the umpires. Kudos too to Brett Lee who has shown a wonderful never-say-die attitude, even when the game was lost, and he too has been a graceful competitior. I'm also pleased for Kevin Pietersen who had attained his maiden Test century today under great pressure, and yet despite that he kept his head and played a most wonderful innings of 158 with seven sixes - beating Ian Botham's record set in 1981. Andy Strauss too had a lovely knock on Thursday, bringing up his century, well done to the Middlesex man :o)

This series epitomised what is good about cricket with its committed and aggressive play, but graceful and respectful players: those over paid and over-hyped prima donna footballers can learn a lot from these guys.

Thanks guys for such a brilliant series, I can't wait until 2007 when England go to Australia and attempt to retain that little urn. I sincerely hope that the series then will continue to be played with such magnaminous spirit. Awesome stuff :oD

What do I do now? These past seven weeks have provided wonderful (if a little too exciting at times!) sport. Ah well, I suppose the county championship is still going (go Middlesex!), and the rugby season has just started again (go Wasps!). I guess there's always something to keep me occupied :oD