And so it ends

England winning the Ashes, who would have thunk it? Not me, that is for sure, I didn’t believe they were good enough. Heck, I still don’t and I just checked the sports to make sure I didn’t dream it. How does a side that scores two individual centuries beat a side that has eight? Or a side whose two best players have injuries that stop them playing a full part in the series beat a side with world class players that return to the side. Or a side that lost to West Indies a few months ago beat the Aussies who had just trashed South Africa in South Africa.

There seems little doubt that Andrew Strauss played a vital role both as opening batsman and captain. He has grown into the captaincy role and has a happy knack of getting good performances from himself and from unreliable bowlers. I think he summed it up best himself “when we are bad we are very bad, when we are good we are just good enough”. England were certainly just good enough today and it won them the biggest prize in cricket.