Be Excellent To Each Other

They are all getting decent scores... well all 4 of them anyway.

This could be a lot closer than we had hoped

But, but, he took 5 wickets in a Championship match earlier this year, he must be good again!!!11!

Seriously, he has always looked ineffective and past it any time he has played for England in the past 2 1/2 years, bringing him back into the side due to reasonable county form was a selectorial cock-up of Darren Pattinson magnitude. He should have been left to play county cricket for the exact same reasons the selectors were right not to recall Mark Ramprakash when there was that stupid clamour to pick him cos he always scored 200 against bad bowling.

God damn it I'm actually angry right now

Freddie! He's the new Gary Pratt!

Strauss! He's the new Freddy Flintoff!

Typical that the site that was streaming the cricket all day yesterday isn't streaming it today at all

Bring me my bow of burning gold, colonial underlings!

No. Can you?

Warne should say that more english bowlers deserve more wickets.

Well I could earlier but things are looking better now.

Have we not won yet?

Nope they need 230 to win, we need 5 wickets.

can we win?

History and the record book says we will. I have put a bet on Australia that should guarantee we win.

i wish i understood test cricket

Oh yes, bye bye haddin.

There goes Johnson too

FUCKING YES!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!

Nearly there now... just a little bit extra...

By the way, how long will they play for tonight? Is there a maximum amount of overs?

I think it's a case of playing till 6:30 but if there's a chance of a result, it can go till 7pm.

Good-o. Would love it sorted tonight so I don't have to miss seeing any 'cos of work tomorrow (I'm sure the players will be considerate and take this into account!)

1 more wicket?

It's looking like it will be all over soon

Well I am positive now..The ashes are coming home!!

1 wicket to go.

I bet Nemmie feels silly now. I was expecting for them to be seven down by the end of today, but I'll take the win a bit early.

Mind you in fairness, it was a slow plod earlier in the day, for what seemed like forever. Still, proves you need to be patient and such, to bring the result home.

Yes, but there was never a point where I thought that Ponting and Hussey would put on 300 together and take the game away from us.

YESSSSSSSSSSSSSSSSSSSSSSSSSSSSSSSSSSSSSSSSSSSSSSSSSSSSSSS!

YES!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!

FUCKING YES!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!

Amazing.

Ian Bell, double Ashes winner!

Most awesome.

Nope. I feel sensible for not celebrating too early

what a tiny trophy.

I am pleased with this sporting outcome.

And Ponting's fat lip.

It's the smallest trophy in world sport, but it takes quite the man to lift it.

And, with the possible exception of Bopara, there wasn't a single member of that England team who didn't make a significant contribution to winning the series somewhere along the line. It's a flawed team but that was a wonderful performance.

When they gave out medals, they gave out 14... included Monty, Onions and KP, but no Bopara.

Then all the team and management were talking about the 14 players who did it all.

It's official. Ravi Bopara, like the last away Ashes series, no longer exists.

I wasn't celebrating. I was saying there was no way we could lose it, given the last 130 years of history and the state of the pitch. It doesn't mean I wasn't sat there clinging to my sofa when Ponting and Hussey were piling up the runs, though. If they had knocked off 550 runs to win it, I'd have said fair play to them, they would've deserved the series. But there was no way they could've done it, really. Not even their dominant team of the 90s/00s had chased down a target like that.

Nice to see Strauss saying the celebrations would be muted compared to last time, and that this is a stepping stone onto greater things. in 2005 it was a battle between the two best teams in the world. Now the rankings say that this time it was 4th against 5th.

I think its even sweeter considering all the stats say we got owned but we still managed to beat the buggers.

Fantastic .

Only after the series, to be fair. At the start it was 1st against 6th.

It shows how far they've fallen, though, when we beat them 2-1 in 2005 and didn't make much of a dent at all in their #1 ranking.

But it means more than most.

I'm surprised it has changed their ranking (or ours) - I thought the rankings were done by replacing the previous series result (in England) with this one, with with no time weighting, which means that our 2-1 victory is replaced with a, erm, 2-1 victory.

The ranking system is highly convoluted, nothing like as simple as you thought; it's on a par with the Duckworth-Lewis system for ease of understanding I think.

Don't you get a certain amount of points for the numbers of Tests you've won divided by the Tests you've played in the last four years, or something?

It's done on Bananas, isn't it?

Nah, West Indies would be top if it were.

We don't need Ponting. We'll have Jacques Rudolph in 2010. Thats only a half-joke, if we do, I won't be happy about it.

Can it seriously be right that you can play for a 2nd test nation after you've already played for one? I can't think of any other team sports that allow it... unless rugby does?

(I know it is allowed, I'm asking "should it" be the case, not "is it" the case, to clarify)