Βι¶ΉΤΌΕΔ

Andrew Strauss - 9
When Strauss took over in the wake of the , he was labelled by many as a "safe pair of hands", and that's exactly what he's been.

His batting has blossomed with the responsibility of the captaincy - he scored more runs than anyone else in the series - and he has forged a close and fruitful relationship with .

Out-skippered and, aged 32, he could be in charge for some time. Some call his captaincy "conservative", but he's just won back the Ashes - what more could any Englishman want?

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England

Andrew Strauss - 9 Two crucial fifties, Strauss' batting has blossomed with the extra responsibility of the captaincy. Marshalled his bowlers well and looked calm and flinty as the business end of the series approached.

Alastair Cook - 4 The Essex man has well and truly cemented his reputation as an inveterate nibbler: stick the ball outside his off-stump early in his innings, and it's likely Cook will go looking for it.

Ian Bell - 7 Scrapped well to top-score for England in their first innings, although perhaps should have converted his 72 into a first Ashes hundred. Fell cheaply in the second innings, questions remain over his temperament.

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One day, your son or daughter might pull a copy of from the bookshelf, or more likely magic on to a computer screen, and ask the killer question: "Was he really all that good?"

And you'll sigh and chuckle, having recalled , or his , or his . And you'll find yourself saying, rather patronisingly, "you'll never really understand".

The record books will tell future generations that Flintoff wasn't even the best all-rounder of his time. , with his 10,000-plus runs, his 31 Test centuries, his 258 wickets, rather swamps Flintoff in terms of cold statistics.

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Aesthetically, could it have been more perfect? Standing all alone at mid-on, arms and legs spread wide, the thunder and the adulation of the crowd all his. No-one else blocking his sun, just as likes it.

Flintoff, labouring like , knew he wasn't going to conjure anything with his bowling in his final Test, so he decided to conjure something in the field instead. Pipe down, Broady, I'm not done just yet.

It could be said that England regained the Ashes by less than an inch. The run-out of Ricky Ponting by Flintoff, that of Michael Clarke by Andrew Strauss, the stumping of Marcus North by Matt Prior, such is the infinitesimal dividing line between glory and failure, in at least.

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Βι¶ΉΤΌΕΔ Sport at The Oval

If will be remembered as the greatest series ever, then the 2009 series might go down as the series that made mugs of us all.

True, the 2005 version ebbed and flowed, rocked and rolled and repeatedly confounded, but discernible patterns could at least be deciphered behind the madness.

The 2009 Ashes has been as unpredictable - and dangerous, as far as the pundits are concerned - as a faulty consignment of Eastern Bloc weaponry.

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Βι¶ΉΤΌΕΔ Sport at The Oval

The consensus among the ex-pros was that The Oval groundsman had prepared a "workmanlike" pitch for this .

But while Australia's pacemen were happy to be packhorses on day one, too many of England's batsmen were delicate racehorses, cantering a few yards before pulling up lame. Again.

It has been one of the prominent themes of the series, illustrated perfectly by the fact Australia have scored seven tons to England's one, and embodied by , he of the glossy coat but skittish constitution.

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