What an out­come. Before hea­ding into the 2006 ashes I had a strange fee­ling that we would do terribly, what with injury woes, no pre­pa­ra­tion and poor team selec­tions. Howe­ver come today I can say how truly proud of the England cric­ket team I am; they pulled through and wor­ked hard to break pass these boun­da­ries to beat Aus­tra­lia hands down in a com­plete 5–0 white wash! I never thought I would see the day that England could beat Aus­tra­lia so com­prehen­si­vely in the sport that they have domi­na­ted for the past decade. To see England come back from down under with ashes still in hand brings a tear to my eye. They truly have ear­ned those MBEs now, they have done the country proud and let us hope that they can con­ti­nue to improve their game. It was a little bit hairy in Ade­laide, when Aus­tra­lia put on a good score and dec­la­red it loo­ked like win­ning was out of the ques­tion, but Pie­ter­sen mana­ged to pull off the second fas­ted 100 ever and we bri­lliantly grab­bed the Aus­sies by the balls and won the game on the 5th day. My only regrets are that Warne, one of the grea­test cric­ke­ters of our time, has to retire amidst his team’s most dire per­for­mance. But let’s not get too down, I for one shall be in Lon­don next week for the open-top vic­tory parade! Roll on ashes 2009.